Marrakech express

Sorting out my thoughts about this movie is tricky since I did read the book and it's hard to forget it.

The book has the distinction of being narrated by the younger sister and so a crucial part of the book's identity is lost. But I think this is for the best since it instead chooses to tell its story visually rather than use an annoying narrator to tell us what we can see. A first person novel is incredibly intimate while a movie (when made like a movie, not a book) has the advantage of a certain aloofness and there is something voyeuristic in the cool pacing and candour of this story.

There is a much stronger character in the mother here as someone on a quest for spirituality but not sure what kind of spirituality. The focus is on the family and isn't centred on the little girl so much.

The on location filming is beautiful even if it could have given us more in terms of local colour.

Overall I enjoyed this breezy movie about people on an indeterminate path in life and trying to find identity in exotic lands and how this doesn't turn out as will as you hope. The light touch is much appreciated and the sense of intimacy of the family is evident from their physical interaction. The little girl strolls dressed in nothing but underpants to cuddle with Mom; later she slides up close to Mum making love with her Muslim lover.

At it's core a little disquieting but ultimately warm experience.

People who find the story "weak" "incomplete" "meandering" "frustrating" are missing the point there. The whole hippie travel experience was by definition all of the above so the film depicts very accurately what a woman of 25 in 1972 in Morocco with a local boyfriend would have been experiencing. The local colour is extremely well depicted as is the relationship between Julia and Bilal. Also the daughters not wanting any of it Sufi master or not; as it happened to so many commune kids from that period who left to take up merchant banking or join the army; most kids like order and not aimless wandering; so again: accurate depiction ... the film is by no means a masterpiece but it is nonetheless excellent and for anyone too young to remember the turn of the 70s a useful timetravel tool ... and yes all the acting is first-class here: The kids; Kate; all the Moroccan actors.

Hideous Kinky is based on the semi-autobiographical novel by Esther Freud (descended from a certain Swiss Psychiatrist). The film, set in the 1960's, follows Julia, a young English mother with her small children, Bea and Lucy, recently divorced from her creative, and philandering, husband. She is in Morocco, like many young Europeans inspired by the counter-culture philosophy of the time, to explore herself with respect to its eastern philosophy and culture.

It would be so easy for a film with such a subject to fall into the trap of using the 'orient' as merely a backdrop to depict fun backpackers engaging in pseudo-spiritual experiments. Or, on the other hand, take a more malevolent track of exploiting the bad feeling between Europeans and Arabs by having the bright young Julia encounter the traditional savage, woman-hating Arab as depicted in most western films, and pioneered by Valentino in Hollywood's silent classic The Sheik (1921).

However Hideous Kinky is refreshing as it is fun and 'exotic', but does not compromise in its sense of responsibility. It attempts to show an intelligent, though wayward, young mother with the genuine desire to explore her self internally, and captures the richness and humanity of the country and its people around her, exhibiting their interesting religious life and culture.

The feel of place in the film is astonishing. Marrakech, with the narrow streets and courtyards of its old town, dark and forbidding, but also revealing wonder, and the surrounding desert, are filmed deliciously with ambition and assurance. Julia, as well as being part of the 'drop out' European expat community, finds herself accessing different strands of Moroccan society, the common society of Morocco via her relationship with Bilal, a shady character who turns out to be a convict, played wonderfully by Said Taghmaoui, and the higher rungs via her ex-husband's friend, Santoni.

Central to the film- and what also complicates it, giving it an added, new dimension- is Julia's relationship with her two children, played astoundingly well by Bella Riza and Carrie Mullan. They, in turn, have their own incredible experiences, good and bad, as shown by their delightful but confused sayings. Julia, unusually in film, is a complex female character with many shades. She is naïve, foolish and irresponsible. At one point, she even manages to lose one of her daughters. But she is also smart, soulful and canny, and from her time in Morrocco, Julia does gain an insight into her self, but it is not the insight that she expected, and perhaps it is a genuine insight for that reason. She is played by Kate Winslet with characteristic heart and intelligence, and a brave choice as she had just come off the safety of the glitzy but vacuous blockbuster, Titanic.

Hideous Kinky is a rare thing- despite being government financed, usually the kiss of death for a British film, it is a refreshing and responsible film about an unconventional encounter between European and Arab.

It's 1972 Marrakesh. Julia (Kate Winslet) moves from London to Morocco with his young daughters Bea and Lucy. The girls' father has another woman in London. They struggle waiting for the father's check to come in. Julia falls for acrobat street performer Bilal (Saïd Taghmaoui). She goes to study in Algiers with Sufi mystic Ben Said.

There is a meandering pointlessness about this movie. It doesn't have enough exotic style. The movie doesn't tap into a child's wonder. It doesn't have tension of surviving in a foreign land. Kate Winslet looks downbeat which somewhat fits her character. She may want to be someone looking for spirituality but she strikes as someone self-obsessed running away from her troubled home. She's more about her love life than taking care of her children.

"Hideous Kinky" is not a plot-driven movie but more of a meditation on time and place. And I can live with that. The photography is so rich with colors and beautiful locales, I want to visit Morrocco. The acting in splendid across the board with particular note to the two young girls who were handed quite a bit of duty with the roles. Where this movie failed me is in the character played by Kate Winslet. She behaves with such selfishness and stupidity--not once--but over and over again, that I really grew to dislike her. Sure...she may be a young, naive, adventurous, hippie in the early '70's, but a I refuse to believe she didn't realize what kind of danger she was putting her children in. "Hideous Kinky" is a good movie--not great. And it's good for one viewing, maybe two for the cinematography.