For a long film, there's remarkably little plot in Abdellatif Kechiche's 'Couscous', a story an elderly Tunisian immigrant in France who decides to open a restaurant; and if anything, the pace of the action slows as the film progresses, and it ends without reaching even the expected conclusion. In some ways, it feels remarkably like a documentary, even if a real documentary would be unlikely to capture people just talking (or dancing) with the same degree of un-self consciousness that is (deliberately, brilliantly) affected by this film. The scene where one woman berates her absent husband is harrowing, breathtaking: the achievement of the film overall is to capture the rhythms of life, and speech, of the community it portrays. There's both a truth and a poetry here that are the complete opposite of soap opera; though the absence of any concluding pay-off is maybe a step too far. Nonetheless, the film deserved its awards; and never drags, in spite of its length.
Review of The Secret of the Grain
