About half an hour in i was saying to myself: This is why i watch foreign films; they drop me into ordinary small bits of life all over the world. How people genuinely live, how they actually (have to) work, all those real to life messy relationships. And here we have all this close-up claustrophobic intimacy, the mix and mess of family and friends, of a close-knit community of people living around one another, eating together, making music, dancing, arguing, bantering, laughing. I was enjoying it.
I was still enjoying it an hour in. Especially as Hafsia Herzi (as Rym) was coming more into the story; what a lively, sexy, feisty, firecracker she is. And old Slimane was reminding me of my quiet old granddad (with his budgie in the cage by the open window facing out to the harbour) I liked being in this salty Mediterranean "reality".
But the second half of the film slowly slid my interest away. I'm becoming aware of how overly extended scenes are getting (do we have to see every pot being carried out of that car?) Dialogues are running repetitively into one another, with much shouting and wailing. Crude melodrama is starting to become the predominant driver of the narrative.
Disappointingly, the film has felt like it's lost its way – and I've lost sympathy with both the characters and the plot they're in. The boat restaurant scenes at the end – Ryms belly dancing for example – and sad Slimane running around and around in hopeless circles after the jeering kids on his stolen bike – have become far too farcical.
Its a real let down when a film, especially a long film like this, fails to deliver what it was promising. All that couscous, just slopped wastefully out onto the floor.
(For the first hour about a 7; and the other hour and a half is about a 4)
I was still enjoying it an hour in. Especially as Hafsia Herzi (as Rym) was coming more into the story; what a lively, sexy, feisty, firecracker she is. And old Slimane was reminding me of my quiet old granddad (with his budgie in the cage by the open window facing out to the harbour) I liked being in this salty Mediterranean "reality".
But the second half of the film slowly slid my interest away. I'm becoming aware of how overly extended scenes are getting (do we have to see every pot being carried out of that car?) Dialogues are running repetitively into one another, with much shouting and wailing. Crude melodrama is starting to become the predominant driver of the narrative.
Disappointingly, the film has felt like it's lost its way – and I've lost sympathy with both the characters and the plot they're in. The boat restaurant scenes at the end – Ryms belly dancing for example – and sad Slimane running around and around in hopeless circles after the jeering kids on his stolen bike – have become far too farcical.
Its a real let down when a film, especially a long film like this, fails to deliver what it was promising. All that couscous, just slopped wastefully out onto the floor.
(For the first hour about a 7; and the other hour and a half is about a 4)