User Reviews

In his sixties, Slimane (Habib Boufares) is a disillusioned and tired man and, since his divorce from his wife, he has become a kind of free electron within his microcosm reduced to a community from North Africa. After an abrupt dismissal from the shipyard of the port of Sète, he quickly and naturally feels a sense of uselessness until having the unexpected idea and the strong desire to open a couscous restaurant, on a boat destined to scrap. His whole universe (family and friends) will progressively weld around this project which has become for everyone the symbol of a quest for a better life.

The director Abdellatif Kechiche is a perfectionist and creates with La graine et le mulet (2007) a film of atmosphere. It obviously takes time to describe the environment, the characters, the relationships between them, the issues, ... and thus allow the audience to immerse themselves in a universe that is not necessarily his (mine in all case): this is also the magic of cinema. Thus, the pace is deliberately slow, even very slow, with some scenes that may seem disproportionately long or even unnecessary. Nevertheless, from the beginning to the end, I was in total empathy with this Slimane.

As a synthesis: a movie as endearing as moving, as poignant as revitalizing. 7/8 of 10

Something unusual happened at the end of this movie projection. Several people not knowing each other gathered at the cinema exit and discussed the movie. It appeared that the movie was spoiled by several cinematographic tics which the director promoted to the status of the style and used all over the movie "ad nausea". He extends the lengthy sequences probably to make us share the uneasiness of the characters in the given situation (the mother scolding the child for weeing in her panties, the guests waiting for the cous-cous, the final run of Slimane and the belly dance). But this is a 0-level translation of the reality into the cinematographic language. The profusion of the very close-ups and the clip-like filming with very short shots is a minor default. It is probably one of the points which makes some people like the movie as "modern". The movie is almost twice as long as usual and I can not find any cinematographic reason to make it this long, if not just the desire to convince the spectator (and jury) that this movie has something exceptional. We spent some good moments but we hope that this gifted director will not be encouraged to belaborates more in his future creations.

Abdel Kechiche's tragicomedy is a film of contradictions and contrasts. It is both quiet and boisterous, with a script that is both understated and energetic, and which explores (among other things) how communities both accept immigrants, and yet remain suspicious of them.

Couscous follows sixty-something Slimane Beiji, a Tunisian-French shipyard worker in the French port town of Sète, played with reserved dignity by Habib Boufares. Despite being divorced, Slimane still spends a lot of time with his ex-wife and their extended family. The rest of his time is spent with his girlfriend and her daughter, who own a quayside hotel.

When Slimane is laid off, it comes as the last straw in a life that has become increasingly redundant. Left with nothing to lose, he hits upon the idea of opening a restaurant on an old boat. The project becomes a focal point for Slimane's extended family: his sons lend a hand with the boat's renovation; his girlfriend's daughter helps acquiring the necessary bank loans and official documents; and his ex-wife will cook the restaurants signature dish – the eponymous couscous.

The restaurant works as a symbol of the hopes and dreams of immigrants – how all they want is to integrate and work in their new community, whilst still retaining the culture and customs of their homeland. But it also signifies the duality of a community's attitude toward immigrants. During a party thrown to promote Slimane's restaurant, the guests all compliment their host and try their hand at a little Arabic; and yet, when Slimane's back is turned, they whisper amongst themselves that "he's not from around here." But Couscous really shines in its extended scenes of dialogue. At several points during the film we join Slimane and his family as they sit in kitchens or dining rooms and do nothing but talk. And it is a joy to watch. The script shows an eye for authentic dialogue, meandering through topics as diverse as racism in the workplace, the extortionate price of nappies, and using Arabic in the bedroom. The genuine performances from the supporting cast draw us further into these scenes, and the cinematography keeps us there. The camera squeezes between family members, getting the kind of intimate close-ups that give a real impression of a loud family dinner.

This light-hearted attitude, present in the early scenes, contrasts with a grimmer final third, in which situations get progressively worse. And as things get worse, family relationships start to break down.

This also reveals the film's ultimate irony. Slimane's family is a close-knit unit when the members each live separate lives. But when the restaurant brings them together, family unity dissolves and they resort to serious bickering.

I have heard this film being compared to Eat Drink Man Woman, which is fair enough, if not slightly deceptive. Sure, there's a similar veneration for the art of cooking and how this draws and binds families. But the film casts a wider net than this may suggest. For me, it strongly resembles the humanistic and naturalistic stories of Robert Guédiguian, particularly La ville est tranquille (The Town is Quiet).

The actors are largely non-professionals. The use of long takes, including long stretches of dialogue, is very impressive and suggests that some of the script may be improvisational. I liked the chit-chat, the small details of daily life (like toilet-training a child), that films normally gloss over.

The film has a documentary look and feel and parts are like a fly-on-the-wall at a family gathering. For me, the importance of this is to convey how human this family is, with a rich and warm cultural heritage. In particular, it renders as impotent, irrational fears of Muslim culture.

The film works on multiple levels because it taps into the universal everyday concerns that potentially touch us all in one form or another: prejudice against immigrants, attitudes towards Islam post 9-11, globalisation, ageism in the workforce, the effects of poverty, family breakdown and more. Yet, importantly, the film is not preachy but merely presents life in a matter-of-fact way.

The female performances in the film are particularly affecting, especially the young Hafsia Herzi playing Rym, the daughter of Slimane's lover, and Leila D'Issernio who plays his Russian daughter-in-law.

At 148 minutes, the film is quite long, though this is not apparent until the final scene, which seems to be prolonged in real-time for a particular effect. On paper, the story looks like something we've seen before, but avoids all the clichés we might expect. I loved it.

Abdellatif Kechiche did very well with his previous movie "L'Esquive". But here we have even better. The story is simple : I'd say it is mostly about dignity, sacrifice and family love. The acting is brilliant. Habib Boufares is perfect, the young Hafsia Herzi is astounding, especially for the end of the movie. The actors are mostly non-professional people but the script is very well written and the characters are well defined, so this "amateurism" does great and helps the audience's immersion. The cinematography is very special (but never disturbing), with a lot of very close close-ups. The camera is "natural" as with Casavettes, but not "drunk", it is not a pain to watch and you don't get sea sick. The whole movie reminded me the Italian neo-realism and also a little of Renoir. Some people mention Pialat. It's a quite long movie but you don't feel it while watching, you just realize it after.

Abdellatif Kechiche, who is also an actor, stands with Turkish-German director Faith Akim as the preeminent director dealing with diaspora experience in western Europe. He was born in Tunisia but was brought to France at the age of six and grew up in Nice. 'La graine et le mulet,' the title, refers to (mullet) fish couscous (grain) and Kechiche has said he's as stubborn as the mullet. The action is in the southern French port town of Sète. Most of the cast are non-actors.

Though marred by a jittery camera in intimate scenes, over-close closeups, and some sequences that are allowed to run too long, 'The Secret of the Grain' is nonetheless a triumph, an emotionally powerful, overwhelmingly rich, epic-feeling tragi-comedy that overflows with wonderful performances, evokes a host of masters including Jean Renoir and the Italian neorealists, and fairly bursts off the screen with its loving and complex portraits of Magreban society in France and the harsh world in which it struggles and survives. The main focus for all this is food: two grand meals, one intimate and familial, the other in a projected couscous restaurant on an old boat where friends and family and local officials are all invited to show off cuisine and entertainment in an effort to prove that an old man at the end of his tether can, with the help of his family and friends, make a go of it in a new business, against all odds. Kechiche and his cast focus not so much on any plot-line arc, though there are dramatic turns of events right up to the end, but on the way they work as an ensemble to make each moment come alive. In the somewhat stilted, over-polished and over-sophisticated and often dry world of French cinema, it's not hard to see how the rough, irresistible energy of the world Kechiche brings to the screen here would seem a welcome tonic. And, it has to be admitted, giving the same very gifted Arab director the run of the Césars twice can't help but be soothing to the consciences of the left-liberal intellectuals who tend to dominate the world of French film criticism. It doesn't hurt that 'Secret' is offered by Pathé and has the imprimatur of the prestigious producer Claude Berri.

Kechiche's previous (and second) film 'L'Esquive' ("The Avoidance"), retitled in English 'Games of Love and Chance' (after the 18th-century playwright Marivaux's work which is central to the plot) which won four Césars, including Best Director and Best Film, was about the young mixed population of children of immigrants who live in the ghetto-like suburban Paris 'banlieue.' This new story is a homage to the "fathers," the generation of Kechicne's parents, who immigrated to France forty or fifty years ago.

Hence the protagonist is the sad but determined Slimane Beiji (Habib Boufares), who as the movie begins is told by his boss at the port shipyard workshop that, now sixty-one, he is no longer "rentable" (profitable), his work is too slow, he doesn't keep up with the schedule on projects. Threatened with no benefits because earlier in his 35 years at the site he was off the books and now offered only half-time status, he quits. He lives in a room in a little hotel run by his lover, Latifa (Hatika Karaoui), whose daughter Rhn (Hafsia Herzi) considers Slimane her own dad and defends him against his mean sons by his ex-wife Souad (Bouraouia Marzouk). He owes her alimony, but brings fish instead. The sons say he ought to go back to the 'bled,' the old country; they want to be rid of him.

Slimane's eldest son Hamid (Abdelhamid Aktouche) is married to a Russian woman. His family evidently know about his philandering and especially his affair with the deputy mayor's wife--the need to conceal which becomes a plot pivot-point.

While Slimane is alone in his little hotel room Souad has a big fish couscous dinner with their offspring and their French husbands and children. This sequence is irritating at times for its clamorous, shifting closeups and its cacophonous talk, but at the same time the way this lively, tumultuous gathering in close quarters has been shot is a tour-de-force of complex naturalism. When the sons bring Slimane a dish of the fish couscous, he gets the idea of enlisting his ex-wife to be the cook in a restaurant he might establish in an abandoned ship. Rhm goes with him to the bank and city offices to present the project where they're politely received, but not given the green light. This is where the idea comes to give a grand dinner on the ship to convince everyone Slimane and company can make a go of it. A lot of the second half of the movie consists of this dinner.

The naturalism of the sequence may be suggested by the fact that Bouraouia Marzouk actually did a lot of the cooking for 100 people for the dinner. The theft of Slimane's Moubylette is a conscious homage to De Sica's 'Bicycle Thief' ('Ladri di biciclette'). 'La graine et le mulet' is a thrilling, amusing, moving, excruciating screen experience that takes Abdellatif Kechiche to a new level of accomplishment, but the vagaries of his methods will continue to create enemies as well as admirers as he goes along. As Jacques Mandelbaum wrote in 'Le Monde,' 'The Secret of the Grain' "mixes romance and social chronicle, melodrama and comedy, the triviality of the everyday and the grandeur of tragedy. A simple family meal becomes a classic sequence, a table of old immigrants becomes a Greek chorus, a belly dance a high point of erotic vibration and dramatic tension." For all its flaws, this movie packs a huge wallop and brings Adbellatif Kechiche to the brink of greatness.

It's the third movie of Abdellatif Kechiche (coming after "La Faute à Voltaire", and "L'Esquive"). All these movies deal in a way or another with the life of Tunisian immigrants in France.

This time in "Couscous" the director wanted to show his own background, the universe of his own family, Tunisian immigrants living in Nice, and especially he wanted to bring a tribute to his father, the man who had struggled for all his life to transmit a sense to all of them. It was not to be a biographical film, what Mr. Kechiche was looking for was to catch an atmosphere, and I would say, to catch the ethos.

The shootings have not been done in Nice, as the director feared to become much too sentimental. The chosen location was Sète instead, a small Mediterranean town, where the fishermen leave on their boats each morning and sometimes reach North Africa or the Asian borders, a town struggling with the same issues as everywhere in Europe nowadays: decline of production and unemployment, with the small shipyard challenged by concurrence, the fishing industry challenged the same.

The director had intended to ask his father to play in the movie and started to look for funding and to organize the team. Meanwhile the father passed away. Mr. Kechiche decided then to put a Tunisian actor in the role of the father. It was Mustapha Adouani, whom the director knew very well. Exactly when shootings were to start, Mr. Adouani fell gravely ill (he died after a few months), so they had to find on the spot another solution.

And the solution they found proved brilliant: they hired a non-actor, Habib Boufares, a worker from Nice, a lifelong friend of the father. The role fitted to him as a glove! Actually almost the whole team is of non-actors. The screenplay details were very loosely followed, the director left to the cast the full liberty to improvise. They were playing their own kind of life after all! And they lived their life there, in front of the camera (it was a hand-held camera , to not impede the non-actors in any way). This movie breathes trough all its pores of life, of authenticity, of immediacy! There are only a few professional actors in the cast. Hafsia Herzi (a young actress showing stamina and commitment) plays the step-daughter of the father, a very determined girl, sincerely attached to him and giving full support in difficult moments. There is also Alice Houri, bringing in a secondary role force and sincerity.

I have read the reviews to this movie. Many of them are very critical. The movie is excessively long, they say, and there are a lot of scenes that could have been much shorter without loosing anything. It is a 150 minutes film: one third is devoted to a dinner in family; the mother has prepared fish couscous (you could guess), an endless chat is about anything and nothing; a second third is devoted to a dinner on a boat-restaurant, where everybody is waiting for the main course (fish couscous, you betcha).

Well, it depends on your taste to like this movie or not (it goes the same with the couscous as a dish). I think the director took this risk, to let each scene to unfold on its own, regardless how long it was taking, for the sake of authenticity. He was interested in catching the universe of that community of Tunisian immigrants, in rendering it as natural as it really is; to get this way the ethos of that world. And he needed for this to not interfere in any way: neither by screenplay, nor by camera, nor by editing.

It is a family risking to disintegrate: the parents are separated, one of the sons is cheating his wife, there are tensions with the step-daughter. What keep them strong is the recourse to their specificity when need is: their cuisine, the wonderful plates with fish couscous. And their music and dance, in the most dramatic moments. There is a long scene of belly dance at the end of the movie: I don't want to say more, to not spoil the story. These guys speak only French and follow the French system of values. They keep however their cultural origins as assets.

Some reviewers mentioned "Eat Drink Man Woman" of Ang Lee: there also it is cuisine that keeps family against disintegration. I would mention also in this context "A Touch of Spice": a Greek family forced to leave Istanbul will keep their specific identity by keeping to "Politiky Kouzina", the way Greeks from Istanbul use spices in their dishes.

For me "Couscous" called in mind also "35 Rhums", another French movie whose heroes also belong to an ethnic minority in France.

I think somehow the family in "Couscous" and the movie itself resemble: both could disintegrate, both keep ultimately strong, the family keeping to their cuisine, the movie by keeping to the authenticity of this universe and by getting their ethos.

At first I was taken in by the almost sacred reverence the characters had for what the main dish of which the original title contains which is grain and mullet or fish couscous. Some of the characters and their relationships are truly compelling with moments that seem so real, you really feel like you truly are getting a glimpse of the lives of real people and their dreams and wants and flaws.

But ultimately the movie drags on way too long and 2/3 through you really just want everything to end... the last third is just torture to watch because they try to extend the drama way too long and when you finally come to the release you've been looking for which is the end of the story, it is way to unsatisfying and there's not enough couscous to save it.

Tunisian born French director Abdellatif Kechiche's third feature Secret of the Grain is dedicated to his father whose silence after a long day of hard work reflects the demeanor of the film's lead protagonist, Slimane Beiji (Habib Boufares), a Tunisian immigrant who has been laid off from his job in the shipyards after thirty five years. Winner of best picture, director, screen play and actress awards at the 2008 Cesar Awards, the film is not a Loach-type work of social consciousness but a rich, varied, multi-layered family drama that is universal in its appeal. Although the English title of the film suggests there is some secret held by the grain, the only secret in Secret of the Grain is how Kechiche manages to seamlessly weld together into a cohesive whole such disparate elements as the traditions of great cooking, the problems immigrants confront when dealing with white authority, and the desire to leave a legacy to your children.

Set in the French coastal village of Séte on the Mediterranean, the grain in the title refers to couscous, a diet staple of Tunisian immigrants and a dish that Slimane hopes to use to turn a dilapidated old boat into a profitable restaurant with his ex-wife Souad (Bouraouia Marzouk) doing the cooking. Shot with a hand-held camera that bobs and weaves through long takes of eating, animated dinner conversations, and emotional family disputes, the 151-minute Secret of the Grain has the authenticity you would expect if you accidentally stumbled into a Greek restaurant where an animated family dinner was taking place. In a scene at one of the two family dinners that take up half of the film, the length and variety of facial close-ups of people chewing, laughing, and talking in multi-cultural accents is staggering.

The centerpiece of the film is Slimane and his clan consisting of his two sons, five daughters, grandchildren, his ex-wife Souad, his lover Latifa (Hatika Karaoui), and her fiery twenty-year-old daughter Rym (Hafsia Herzi) who adores Slimane and whose energy and business acumen is the catalyst for his risky venture. Slimane, a man of sixty-one whose periods of silence stand in sharp contrast to the loquaciousness of his family, lives in a modest room in a weather-beaten hotel run by Latifa. A generous man, Slimane collects fish from his fisherman friends and delivers them each week to Souad, his older daughter Karima (Faridah Benkhetache); and Latifa.

The first hour delves into mundane family matters. When Slimane visits his eldest daughter Karima (Farida Benkhetache) to deliver some fish, Karima's anger at her three year-old daughter who refuses the potty dominates the conversation which continues for almost ten minutes interspersed with comments about the decline of the shipping industry. Other extended domestic scenes revolve around the escapades of Slimane's irresponsible son Majid (Sami Zitouni) whose extra-marital affairs threaten to drive his Russian wife Julia (Alice Houri) out of the family. The idea of starting a restaurant at age sixty-one raises much skepticism in the community and Slimane's plans are considered too thin and too unsupported by economic reality by the bank he asks for a loan.

To prove the worth of his idea, however, Slimane invites one hundred city officials, potential investors, friends and family to the boat that he, Rym, and his son Riadh (Mohamed Benabdeslem) painstakingly renovated. The opening night turns out to be an astonishing tour de force that combines life-affirming exuberance, sensual music and belly dancing, and an avoidable crisis that leads to heightened family tension and a suspenseful final half hour. Kechiche, a former movie and TV actor, has assembled an outstanding ensemble cast with first rate performances, especially from Boufares and Herzi. Though the film has many discussions about food, it is not a feel-good "food movie" but a complex, deeply intense narrative that elevates one family's personal struggles into a drama of epic scope.

I liked this one quite a bit more than Games of Love and Chance, though I didn't anywhere near love it. It drags a lot of the time, and could have told the same story at a half an hour shorter without losing a thing. Habib Boufares stars as a 60-something year-old man who has been laid off from his job at the shipyard. With the help of his family and friends, he plans to open a restaurant on a broken down old boat he acquires. Things do not quite go as planned. There's a lot of great development with the characters. I admit, the boredom came mostly from the earlier scenes, but most of it pays off nicely in the very good final forty minutes, which are surprisingly gripping. The acting here is, on average, much, much better than in Games of Love and Chance, without a bum actor in the group. The big discovery here is Hafsia Herzi. Her belly dancing is awesome, for sure, but she's outstanding throughout. Her career seems to have gone well afterward. I'll finally have to sit down and watch House of Pleasures (aka L'Apollonide) now.

Diane and I attended this wonderful film in Fremantle this morning and both of us left the theater at its conclusion realising that we had seen an unusual film from an unusual ethnic angle and that the director and actors had completed a superb work.

I adore our Australian films because many of them explore the mundane drama of quiet ordinary life and this film is no exception even though it is French rather than Australian. I guess Hollywood does not believe viewers are sensitive enough to pay to see domestic drama and that the subject matter must always be "bigger than Ben Hurr" but our movies as well as many European movies have proved that the examination of quiet aspects of everyday life can provide extremely compelling material for contemporary films.

IMDb commentators found it off-putting to watch long film sequences about potty training, marital squabbles and restaurant scenes; however, this is the stuff of myriad similar domestic situations that we are all familiar with. The genius being that the director can make these scenes rich enough to watch. Diane and I both believe he did this admirably as well as providing much to discuss and reflect upon later.

We both found it different and endearing that we were allowed into the lives of people and their situations that would be closed to us without this delightful film. Yes, I used the adjective "delightful"; the scenes of domesticity were enlightening and compellingly endearing because we are inundated with Western examples of the genre but few (such as in this film) of other ethnic examples.

A film that should not be missed!

Cous Cous is set on the coast of Southern France in a coastal community where traditional industries are dying away. The void opening up with the decline of fishing and boat making industries is considerable, and the sprinkling of tourist interest in the area does little to salve these wounds. The malaise and despondency of the community is encapsulated in the person of Slimane, a taciturn divorcée who is told at the start of this film that he will henceforth receive only part-time employment at the scrapyard where he makes his living.

In the early stages of the film we are also introduced to Slimane's large and diverse family. The family – minus Slimane – is first brought together for a meal of fish and couscous at the household of Souad, Slimane's former wife. This is the first of several long and engrossing commensal scenes. The rapid, witty dialogue and the skillful close-up camera-work filmed around and among the diners create a remarkable intimacy between the actors and the viewer, so that very soon we are immersed in the family's intrigues and laughing at their bawdy humour.

However, the family is more often in disharmony. The children yearn for Slimane and Souad to resolve their differences, but Slimane is living in a hotel elsewhere in town. The proprietor of the hotel is his new partner and her daughter, Rym, is a close friend. Slimane's children disapprove openly of this situation, but at the same time they have their own problems to face up to, especially the wayward behaviour of Hamid, one of Slimane's sons, who frequently cheats on his fragile wife.

Slimane's despondency intensifies in the wake of his enforced semi-retirement from the scrapyard: he regrets that his family is divided and wishes that he had used his life to create something, to create a legacy for his children. It is in the face of this despair and with the help of Rym, the daughter of the hotel proprietor, that Slimane resolves to create a restaurant on a derelict boat – a restaurant for which his ex-wife will cook and which his children will serve in. Rather than turning the rest of the film into a modern-day fairytale, director Abdel Kechiche remains levelheaded and keeps his camera trained on the complex and often strained web of relationships amongst the family members of Slimane's divided family. It is a slow and difficult struggle for Slimane to realise his goal, but Kechiche shows little of the construction of this ship in this long (two and a half hours) film.

In the final stages of the film Slimane is desperate to secure funding for his project and decides to host a grand opening of the restaurant with many eminent local personalities on the guestlist. The dramas and calamities in the protracted finale seem somewhat at odds with the first two-thirds of the film, which is low on drama and feels unstaged (indeed there are many non-professional actors in the cast and probably a considerable amount of improvisation). Nevertheless, as Slimane struggles to ensure that the dinner reaches the diners and the grand opening morphs awkwardly into a long-drawn-out party, the film climbs to a thrilling crescendo and a devastatingly abrupt ending.

One that likes generalizations may say that French movies often get trapped in what one may call "a presumptuous way of looking at life". Always that unadjusted narrative, and of course the mysterious/pseudo-philosophical ending. Well, this one is a French contemporary movie that is not attached formulas. The contemplative look is sure french, however the measure is precise. It provides an unbelievable and unexpected intimacy with the characters, which is only recognized by the viewer as the movie comes to the end. Offering a particular time frame that values a constant and naturalistic look at the sequences, this movie conducts you through the beauty of simple things in life as if it was the greatest conquests of human kind.

In the grand tradition of film dealing with food as a central centerpiece,'La Graine Et Le Mulet' (released in the U.S.& other English speaking countries as 'The Secret Of The Grain') can easily be placed with other films such as 'Eat,Drink,Man,Woman','Big Night' & 'Babbette's Feast'. Slimane,a sixty something ship yard worker is being pressured by his boss to step down,due to the fact that he's not as fast as the younger men who are working the docks. All of this,plus the pressures of dealing with an ex-wife,who scolds him for non payment of alimony,plus his sons & daughters,who are constantly arguing with each other,as well as their own families is having an effect on his life. Slimane's dream is to refurbish a boat & turn it into a floating restaurant that serves up traditional North African cuisine (with CousCous,the star attraction). After procuring the funds,not to mention going through the bureaucratic b.s. that's necessary for an undertaking of this sort, Slimane is on to realizing his dream. Abdel Kechiche writes & directs a fine story of family bonds & over coming hurdles (or at least trying to over come hurdles). Habib Boufares plays a weary looking Slimane. The rest of the cast is made up of various folk from Tunesia,France & other places. The camera work (by Lubomir Bakchev) opts for a documentary look that really works for this film (as the documentary look also worked fine for 'The Class',earlier this year). If I have any quirk with this film, at two & a half hours,plus,it's a wee bit long in the tooth (several scenes could have been either trimmed,or even cut out,which would not have hurt the films integrity in the least). Make sure you enjoy a full meal before you undertake this film (as you'll be really hungry after wards). Spoken mostly in French & Arabic with English subtitles. Not rated,but contains raunchy language,brief flashes of nudity & some muted sexual content

It really wasn't what I expected from a French film but left me with much more. Instead of breathtaking establishing shots of the picturesque French countryside and happy-go-lucky dialogue, I was confronted with unorthodox cinematography and fresh, honest conversation. The extreme close-ups aided the film to expose raw human emotion and the dynamics of family, love, lust, legacy and betrayal.

Stunning acting (especially Hafsia Herzi) caused the film to appear more as a documentary than a fictional tale - whilst retaining intimacy. Portraying a design with care and detail; the length of each scene fully expresses the human drama occurring within it and despite the film's length the messages it expresses remained poignant.

This Franco-Tunisian film about an arabian family in France is extraordinary. Not only is a delightful piece of art, made by someone who really loves to show and more important than all, value the small things on life. Abdellatif Kechiche's 'La Graine et le Mulet ' is a fulfilling experience for those who are starving for a film that is both intellectually and emotionally impactive. With the close- ups in the face of the characters dialoguing, and the totally realistic, raw atmosphere and art direction, creates a feeling of intimacy between the viewer and the characters on this film, even if you have never seen them before. Also, the characters often are shown doing day-to-day things, eating in the table, but yet, everything works in function to the plot. Nothing really seems pointless. That's perhaps what is more fantastic about this film. The acting is also great. Certainly you won't regret watching this amazing film. The only complaint I have is due the fact the film is way wordier. 9/10

Absolutely one of the worst films I've ever seen and one of the worst films ever made. Couscous is an amateur hack job in every conceivable aspect, and I'm quite convinced that I know more about film-making than does Abdel Kechiche, the mooncalf who dreamed up this agonizing-to-watch attempt to create meaning out of a bad script, bad actors, and an utterly idiotic concept. The film's publicity brags that it's the "best French film of the year"; the French film industry should sue Kechiche for even suggesting such a thing. Couscous isn't slow; it's the Chinese water torture, it's root canal without anesthesia, and the film's endless high-volume conversations in which characters talk simultaneously (so you can't understand a flipping thing) are, in themselves, beyond enervating. The protracted sequences of belly-dancing (sordid and embarrassing), of people sitting in a restaurant waiting to be served, and of Habib Boufares running and running and running and running through the streets drag on for a quarter of an hour. There's not one single morsel left to suck out of them—not visual appeal, not symbolic meaning, not plot advancement. Literally nothing. Kechiche sticks his camera on a tripod and goes out for lunch. When he comes back, it's still filming, and you get to watch the entire mess. This guy needs to be banned for life from making films.

This movie reminds one very much of Fellini and his family situations with one very big difference. There is a striking clash and interaction between cultures and social position. But beyond this obvious distinction there is a total difference in the perception of time noted with annoyance by many reviewers. This is a very important factor in the directors considerations-he doesn't give a fiddlers well hoop for the distressed Europeans not to mention the Americans who will find many parts long, extended, drawn out, whatever. Thank God this is not financed by American money and that the French gave him free rein. A WONDERFUL WONDERFUL FLICK.

So how much do diapers cost? And what will be the cost of diapers for say a 2 year period till a child gets potty trained? And do the diaper manufacturers not ill serve mothers by making them so dry and absorbent that the kids refuse to start appreciating the alternative?And yes they serve as great shock absorbers when kids take a tumble.Calculators are pulled out and the math is done, 7200 Euros for one year, it emerges, a small fortune for struggling immigrants. All this detailed discussion is just one tiny piece from this big film directed by the emerging French auteur Abdellatif Kechiche.

The discussion is happening at a Sunday family lunch in the home of a Tunisian immigrant family in a small port city in southern France.Everybody is there, the three daughters, their husbands,children,two brothers and the formidable mother who has prepared her signature dish, fish couscous, except for the father. In a world becoming stubbornly cosmopolitan and westernized the scene of the family eating the couscous noisily, messily and with great relish is heartening. We see the father a little later as his two sons arrive at his squalid hotel room to give him a take away portion.He eats this with a quiet satisfaction. Rym(Hafsia Herzi),who is the young vivacious daughter of the beautiful middle-aged owner of the hotel with whom the father Slimane(Habib Boufares ) is having a relationship, which perhaps divided his family, shares the meal.The film centers around the efforts of an old and out of work Slimane to convert a rusty decrepit boat into a speciality couscous restaurant.In his efforts he will receive extraordinary support from both his families and many friends.

At he heart of the moral dialogue in the film is the profound decency of Slimane, his doggedness, his complete understanding of the compromises involved in being a struggling immigrant and his steadfast adherence to his duty.He knows his limitations and makes his life useful to his family at an old age, in ways that they acknowledge, when the easy thing for them would have been to sideline him from their lives.His daughters adore him and rally around him in his hard times.They clearly have theirs hearts in the right place.We see his first wife walking quite a distance to give a plate of the couscous to a homeless man.It reminded me of the custom in many Indian homes to reserve the first chapatti (indian Bread) for a cow and the last one for stray dogs. As a kid I was terrified of this chore of taking the chapattis to the stray animals but looking back I see it as a custom which built in compassion for animals in our daily life.

The acting which is uniformly superb by the leads Habib Boufares and Hafsia Herzi, as well as the supporting cast, is a collage of neorealist, formalist and melodramatic elements. Rym played the sensational Hefsia Herzi is the real surprise in the film.Her devotion to her mothers old companion, whom she treats with love and respect, and the lengths to which both her character and Ms Herzi go, bring immense joy to the film.Perhaps its her love which provides Slimane with the strength to pursue his dream of opening a restaurant on a boat.

In the extraordinarily detailed final sequence we see a performance of very sensuous belly dancing by the nubile Rym, as she tries desperately to hold the attention of the irritated restaurant guests who are tired of waiting for the main dish of couscous.As she performs the musicians who are mostly old men who stay at her mothers hotel, play for her as they would for a professional. This is also an interesting take on how old men look at young women who are obviously sexually attractive, this scene provides a very civilized and dignified answer.

The film has many long and fully fleshed out scenes, all of which are spectacular in themselves but when they are strung together in a film of this length, it begins to wear us down a bit.The film is raw – in content , tone, texture, performances, dialogue,locations and its use of a fluid hand-held digital camera format.Inside its rawness it hides pleasures as wholesome and nutritious as the fish couscous that lends the film its title, but I am afraid this film will end up dividing the audiences into those who completely immerse themselves in its voluptuousness and those who wish for a more economical and smooth treatment of this fertile material.Surely the director is aware of the perils of his strategy of not holding back, of showing us exactly what he wants to, and this makes this a very brave film.

The film is set in Sete, a slightly rundown but beautiful port city in southern France, that I used to make business trips to. Watching this film brought back pleasant memories of the Mediterranean sea that provides a constant backdrop to the film.The sea is what both separates and links Europe and Africa, historically the oppressor and the oppressed.

Does Mr Kechiche want to convey this group of immigrants as being the representative samples of the North African immigrants? We do not know. But as an intimate case study it will serve as an important artistic marker in Frances struggle to come to terms with its colonial past and the needs of a modern French society, in a post 9/11 world, to banish symbols of conservative Islamic beliefs such as the headscarf.Cinema cannot offer solutions, just mirrors, and this film is a finely embellished one.

First published on my blog mostlycinema.com

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.

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.