Le Fil

"If Malik and Bilal's affaire de coeur swims safely without any internal or external snags, the chief drama in THE STRING is the mother-son reconciliation, and it doesn't take much for Sara to change her mind and munificently dole out her acceptance and benevolence. Although a hale Cardinale basks in Sara's unstrained gentility with ease and charm, THE STRING, as a whole, doesn't live up to her gracious standard, Attia is a clunky filmmaker, plot developments are wheeled out in a groove and subtlety is ever elusive. As a greenhorn, Viswanadhan's performance cannot frictionlessly switch from continental charisma to guilt-ridden turmoil, and Kechiouche's Bilal is too secondary to have any say besides being a supportive boyfriend."

read the full review on my blog: cinema omnivore, thanks

Quite a classy little film, this one. "Malik" (Antonin Viswanadhan) returns from Paris to his home in Tunisia after the death of his father and falls in love with his mother's handyman "Bilal" (Salim Kechiouche). He doesn't so much come out to, as get caught out by, his mother - a still stunning Claudia Cardinale - and the story focuses on the personal and cultural hurdles not just current, but in his past, as they all come to terms. It's a beautifully shot, evenly paced story from a part of the world not often associated with this genre of cinema. Well worth a watch and the score merits a decent sound system too!

This is actually a very good film. the plot-line is intelligent and interesting; it is well acted, directed, and filmed. Its major flaw is that, like most gay oriented films, the major characters are all beautiful. This film deals with real social problems that should be able to move gay audiences particularly, but also a straight public. Why, then, must the action be transported to the realm of the beautiful people, whom the majority of the audience can envy and even empathize with to some extent, but somehow not quite identify with? Having the action take place in beautiful surroundings among beautiful people is, of course, not limited to films that treat gay issues. But it seems to be endemic in films with gay social content, and in that sense, it is particularly harmful. What gay audiences need to see, and what straight people interested in gay issues also need to see, are gay social issues treated as taking place among average looking people in average looking surroundings. These are everyday issues touching the lives of the large majority of gay people. They are not abstractions; they are painful realities. This is no place for physical idealization. The issues are too serious for this type of useless, distracting decoration.

Our hero returns home to his mother's house and must face issues that he was able to avoid by spending time away. Antonin Stahly-Vishwanadan is Malik, a gay man, who keeps running into Mom's servant Bilal, played by Salim Kechiouche. My complaint here is the music. It frequently doesn't reflect the correct mood of what's taking place in the scene. They use eerie violin music in much of the film, even when people are happy, or just driving down the country road. It might be helpful to match the music to the mood of the action or scene. Also, the bit about the string got annoying after a while, even if it IS the title and theme of the film. Don't want to give away spoilers here… we'll just say it all hits the fan, and there are secrets and family members to be faced, in an Islamic country yet. Written, directed, and even a minor role by Mehdi Ben Attia. Attia had only directed a short film prior to this, in 2000. Enjoyable film. Good story, excellent acting. Mostly good subtitles in the TLA version….even if they did skip some bits of the conversation here & there. It's a shame that they did not translate more of what is said in the church... would have been interesting to hear what was said.

Social and religious contradictions, gay/lesbian secrecy, and all this in an Islamic/Arab country - plenty of intriguing stuff to issue from and complete with. True, it is difficult to fit it all in a film less than 1.5 hours, and that is probably the reason why the film seemed a lightweight walk over the issues, with the director's apparent desire of being brave and progressive, but not too provoking in showing love and affection (Mehdi Ben Attia comes from Tunisia where the film is shot). The second half or so is less interesting and even more perfunctory, and the ending is rather odd, characteristic to Bollywood films rather than French creations.

The aged Claudia Cardinale has somehow lost her charm, and all other performers did not impress me much; I did not fix them in my memory, and their accomplishments did not make me look for films with their presence...

Thus, just an average film to me, 1-2 additional points for boldness and pleasant Tunesian scenes - not often shown in films widely available in the Western world. As for gay films, you might want to see respective German and Scandinavian films with meaty approach.