Viva Laldjérie

I just watched "Viva Laldjerie" at the Cine-Club in Algiers. The crisis of the 1990s took a heavy toll on Algerian cinema. Happily, the past couple of years have witnessed a re-emergence, of which Viva Laldjerie is an auspicious example. Set in the Algiers of today, the film tells the story of three women: Papicha, a former cabaret star who dreams of getting back into the business; her daughter, Goucem, an independent spirit working for a photographer and carrying on an affair with a married man she's beginning to suspect wants to leave her; and Fifi, a prostitute who thinks she's got it all under control now that she's found a powerful "protector." Director Moknèche's great achievement is to show how beyond the bright lights, bustling city streets and modern urban architecture there's the sense of a country, of a people, that feels spent and exhausted from the constant threat that the violence that crippled Algeria for almost a decade might once again return. Yet, as the stories of these three women show, resistance can take many forms. In response to previous comments, I am surprise of the level of ignorance of the Arab World. you can watch many different movies in Algeria. I have watched "Emmanual" in Oran The RAI music contains swearing and even blasphemous and you can hear it in chafes, bars etc..Just for your information Algeria is the first wine producer in the world after the Romans, it will help if you know a bit about the Arab culture, for example read about Abu Nawas and Al-Rubaiyat

What a moving portrayal of the human struggle, and the very real costs of that struggle, that occurs for so many today as the result of the cultural schizophrenia in places like Algiers and throughout the Muslim world. Just as so many of the economic and technological benefits of Western culture have begun to penetrate these countries enough to affect the daily lives of most people, radical Islamists enter the scene en force as a reaction against the political ideas and social freedoms that so many also wish to participate in. And much of the ordinary population is caught up in the confusing and dangerous middle ground.

Each of the four primary female characters in this film embody the split personality that *is* the Muslim world today. Each one navigating between desires and ambitions born from her sense that it is permissible to dream of freedom and happiness--however that is symbolically represented for her in her visions of a self-defined destiny...............yet each also struggles against the curbs placed on that freedom and self-determination by the culturally-shrinking society that surrounds her.

In the film this is wonderfully portrayed in the stark difference between the public and the private spaces in which the characters function. This is most obvious in the costuming, as the women cover themselves completely whenever they go "out" (ironically, making them anything but "out") and uncover when they are inside. But this difference is also portrayed in the interaction between the main characters themselves, as though the traditional clothing in which they are hidden also creates a wall between them--and it is only inside, when they have taken off those coverings, that they can relate on an intimate level.

There are crucial - and painful - moments of crisis in the film when these separations break down: bringing the psychic walls of coveredness into the private realm, or being exposed and uncovered in the public realm. And in these moments, we see that things start to break down in the lives of the characters. This also is a continuation of the metaphor: for those living in the schizophrenia of the Muslim world today, who attempt individually and societally to simply put the modern Western world in one compartment and the tug of Islamist fundamentalism in another, who attempt to simply switch costumes while going from one to the other -- such a way of living, such a way of being eventually has to break down.

The film does not attempt to resolve this problem, but merely to set it before us. On the way to its conclusion there is great tragedy, minor redemption, and a possibility of some vague hope. Let us also, as the audience, dare to posses some hope for a future resolution in the Muslim world.....one that does not take such a toll on the women who live their lives within it.

First I lived in Algeria as a child from 63-66. I was very curious about this movie and how things had changed. I am also a pretty good judge of how authentic it is.

The story revolves around Goucem a 27 year old single woman and her mother. Key to the plot is a prostitute Fifi, they all live in Pension Debussy a hotel in downtown Algiers. (We lived in a hotel not a block away in 1963.) Goucem is involved in a no win relationship with an older married man--her mother lives in her past when she was a dancer and the prostitute--well--turns tricks.

The point of the movie is to show what contemporary life is like on the ground in Algiers with emphasis on women. Islamic fundamentalism is background thunder.

First, I was surprised that French would still be so widely used--one would have thought Arabic after 50 years of independence would have largely displaced it. Algiers looks weatherbeaten and somewhat run down---everything from the phones to the buildings look like they have not been modernized much if at all since 1962. They show the wear and their age. Still I much prefer the old buildings to modern stuff. There appears to be population pressure--lots of traffic and people everywhere. Algeria's economy despite its oil money it has not prospered as it could have--also the schism between the Islamists and the secular populations was devastating amounting to a civil war. There is reference in the movie of things like the water being on only every 3 days--life is poor and rather difficult for most. And with religious orthodoxy flexing its muscles things are getting more restrictive.

I think the movie probably exaggerates the current Frenchness of the population.--playing boules? wearing mink coats? Of course the native Algerians have assumed the middle class roles formerly held by Europeans and along with that the mink coats still....

The movie was very nostalgic for me and I gave it an 8. However it drags the last hour...especially the endless scenes with the mother. It is worth a watch for anyone although probably a 6 is about the right rating.

RECOMMEND

The shifting of political power affects our lives more than anything else in the world. And being trapped between two ruthless forces and the shifting political powers makes it almost unbearable for characters of this touching movie. Being a women in Islamic world was always, to put it mildly, hard, but these days of increasing Islamic fundamentalism bring even more hardship. Algerian women must have it particularly hard after a long period of secularism and opportunities for carrier and fulfillment. " Viva Laldjerie" is a brave and concise movie that poses many questions. It doesn't give many answers, mostly because in the shaky times we live in, the outcome is unknown.

How women get oppressed and subjugated my islam pervades a whole society and not for the better