A beautiful paean to the North African community of Marseille, where a suddenly unemployed boat-worker decides to open a fish couscous restaurant aboard a derelict scow. To achieve this, a peace of sorts has to be established among the factions of his complicated and enlarged family, and we watch with interest as each camp gets to present its grievances on the way to a ceasefire.
This film is about family, about parents and children, about assimilation and ethnicity, about food and dancing and pride and folly, but mostly it's about love and bad luck. Shot in a close-up style that pulls the viewer straight into the frame (you feel you are sitting on a stool in the corner of the kitchen, fascinated by the conversations that rage around you), the film seems peopled with actual people, not characters in roles.
This film is unmissably good, with stand-out performances across the entire cast. The director, who had won four Cesars with his earlier film "L'esquive", matched that haul here with this piece of brilliance, establishing himself as candidate for best French director of the decade.
This film is about family, about parents and children, about assimilation and ethnicity, about food and dancing and pride and folly, but mostly it's about love and bad luck. Shot in a close-up style that pulls the viewer straight into the frame (you feel you are sitting on a stool in the corner of the kitchen, fascinated by the conversations that rage around you), the film seems peopled with actual people, not characters in roles.
This film is unmissably good, with stand-out performances across the entire cast. The director, who had won four Cesars with his earlier film "L'esquive", matched that haul here with this piece of brilliance, establishing himself as candidate for best French director of the decade.