Inch'Allah dimanche

It had been a while since I saw a good film. Watching "Inch'Allah dimanche" has ben refreshing. I am writing this comment while I listen to the closing music the fourth time, left with a taste of cinema and a feeling of sweet sadness. Man looks for a peaceful dwelling on the earth. Homesickness is a characteristic of human existence. We belong to where we feel at home.

I must admit that there seems to be flaws in story and some problems with character development. However this originates from the nature of narrative style the director Yamina Benguigui prefers. You must have heard the literary writing style called "flow or stream of consciousness" to which James Joyce's "Ulysess" shown as an example. In the same manner, the film tells the story as a "flow of memories", most probably from a child's point of view. Reading an interview with Yamina Benguigui, I learn that the texture of the work is personal.

Childhood memories are sometimes clear and sometimes obscure. And a child's perception of the events is mainly based on images. So this explains the power and emotional impact of some scenes in the film: for ex. Zouida's breaking the window with bare hand. Or think of the old French couple's garden. They compete for the best garden award. On the other hand, the Algerian family's garden is caotic. And the garden is not their own yet, the children can not play there as they wish. Around the symbolism of garden, we get a from-inside look at the emigrant psychology in its naive form through a child's eye.

Anyway I don't want to go much into details. I recommend the film, hire it and make your own reading. It is worth to see. Acting is good, the music touchs. What else?! Congragulations to Yamina.

I should say right off I have seen other film about Algerians, both there and in Paris. So I'm not unfamiliar with the themes and issues.

I found this often confusing - the protagonist's behavior borders on irrational more than once - and not really evidence of oppression or even racism. Her husband is certainly more violent than we would think acceptable, but not terribly so I would think for the culture at the time and not entirely without provocation. While her errors in dealing with the larger culture are somewhat touching, they're almost like comic relief at times. (In that regard, it occurs to me that this film is also reminiscent of one about a Palestinian immigrant in America.) The mother in law is a bit of a caricature (though very well-played). The exact motivation of the various helpers is uncertain; you would think too that one would know better than to give a certain sort of gift. There's a running theme of a garden contest which never quite comes to the forefront nor gets resolved. The "happy ending" some have mentioned comes largely out of nowhere.

Her over the top joy at learning another Algerian woman lives nearby is almost disturbing in its intensity and the risks she takes given her otherwise hyper-traditional upbringing seem downright eccentric.

Basically, the film mishandles too many disjointed elements and never really lays its central issues out clearly - unlike other work I've seen around this community.

(2001) Inch'Allah Dimanche/ Thank God for Sunday!

(In French and Arab with English subtitles) DRAMA

Written and directed by Yamina Benguigui starring Zouina (Fejria Deliba) a wife with three children whose just moved to France to join her husband as well as her overbearing mother-in-law. Once there, she sees that her life is no different than when she had left as she is continued to be kept inside the household. There are scenes that doesn't seem convincing ,such as throwing a hissy fit to the grouchy neighbors after they punctured a knife into their children's ball after landing onto their prized possession yard. She also start a rapport with friendlier neighbors but with uninteresting results that lead to nowhere. I also think the brief introduction about France accepting refugees family members is nothing but a backdrop to the predictable harsh environments enforced by the father of the household. The movie means well but on an unconvincing terms.

Whilst we've seen many movies about the problems that ethnic minorities experience integrating in an adopted country, the experience of France is unusual inasmuch as the main immigrant population is Algerian - a country whose customs and culture are in stark isolation to those of the majority of the French. Whilst the film is flawed with a number of clichés to make it watchable and enjoyable rather than a documentary, it is serious filmmaking drawing attention to an unusual dilemma and quite engrossing.

I missed this film when it was in the theaters and saw it on DVD recently. I was impressed with the raw and brutal portrayal of the oppression of a woman in a peasant religious culture. I am the product of a similar home from a geographically different culture. The dynamics were the same. I had a grandmother strikingly similar to the violent and domineering matriarch in the film. My mother struggled through domination and surfaced to be a scarred but liberated woman in her time.

I feel the film did a great service to educate the uninitiated, those liberal or naive people in civilized societies, who think that these cultures are quaint and should be left to spin on their own web of unenlightened misery. I think the film portrays a small variety of reactions and variables which effect these violent and repressive cultures when their members immigrate into industrialized and socialized societies with aspirations to human rights for all.

Given the massive inertia that must be overcome to get people, both immigrants and native residents, to be open, flexible, peaceful, generous and kind to each other, this film, beautifully produced, is a good primer. I recommend it.