Jamie passion and passionfruit!

An extraordinary film in the sense that it plays out more like a documentary but is in fact very carefully staged and full of wisdom about people and families.  It takes the story of a Tunisian father who lives in France and when ‘made redundant’ decides to put his efforts and little money into turning a derelict boat into a cous-cous restaurant. His ex-wife will cook for it, his present lover who has a small hotel gets the huff and various members of the family support the project to greater and lesser degrees. The person who most helps him is Rym, his lover’s daughter. Played by Hafsia Herzi, she and Habib Boufares make an odd and compelling couple as they battle local banks and bureaucracy. Both actors, but particularly Herzi, are superb and give us characters that are so real and credible that we hardly feel we are watching a film.  These are real people with no concessions for cinema.  The father is quiet to the point of almost sullenness, the women are quite the opposite and can’t be halted in full flow and with it we learn all about the substrata of family life.  Maybe it is overlong and maybe some of the content drags on a bit but the effect is so natural and so dramatic in precisely a compellingly natural way that you get hooked.  Several scenes, usually involving long dialogues are fascinating and of a type seldom scene in the cinema these days and Herzi’s last main appearance as the belly dancer is stunning.  This is a film that warrants more than one viewing as it gives us real-life drama and many comments about life and immigrants that are most insightful.  Director/Screenwriter Abdellatif Kechiche can take a bow.

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