The Secret Grain, The Page Turner and Notes from director Abdellatif Kechiche
After the brilliant Three Monkeys which released a few months earlier, comes another major award winning movie in India; The Secret of the Grain practically swept the 2008 Cesar Awards winning Best Director, Best Film, Best Original Writing, Most Promising Actress and Best Editing.
It’s a film about an immigrant family trying to survive in the face of adversities, sixty-year-old Tunisian immigrant Slimane (Habib Boufares) wants to turn his life around by converting a wrecked tug into a port-side restaurant. His ex-wife’s fish couscous is the main attraction, but a lot more is cooking during opening night.
This remarkable film even won the FIPRESCI Prize at the 2007 Venice International Film Festival.
There is another gripping French movie, The Page Turner which also releases this Friday in India.
Check out a special Director’s Note from Abdellatif Kechiche, Director- The Secret of the Grain.
And The Page Turner is being shown at…
The Page Turner
Bangalore – 8.20 pm and 12.10 pm @ PVR Forum Mall
Mumbai – 9.35 pm @ PVR Juhu
-9.05 pm @ PVR Goregaon
While The Secret Grain Shows are at…
The Secret of the Grain
Delhi- 6.10 pm @ PVR Select City Walk
Director’s Note (Abdellatif Kechiche) – The Secret of the Grain
“I began with a popular fantasy, the kind of story they like to tell about in the projects, the myth of those who “made it,” or in other words, those who escaped the modern slavery of a nowhere career path by starting their own businesses. And I wanted to treat it with a certain irony, unbridal the story in the way you can with a narrative tale.
So this is an adventure story, one where the narration is closer to that of a tale, with all the digressions, suspensions, etc. that implies, rather than an action film per se. He is old, poor and Arab and he wants to create something big in order to regain his dignity and help his loved ones get a leg up. Even as I confined myself to concentrating and maintaining interest in this central action, which because of its euphoric and symbolic value was very important to me, paradoxically, I allowed the parentheses to freely pile up, like so many escapades justified by the simple pleasure of contemplating the events in the daily life of a family drama.
In the end, that is the dimension which interests me most. It’s about getting close to these characters who are my loved ones, in order to show little things from everyday life. That’s why I had to adopt a singular narrative rhythm. Generally, an ongoing action doesn’t allow you to stay on one thing too long, but a real family meal or the beginnings of an emotion showing through on someone’s face needs screen time to happen.
This marriage between a novelistic dimension and the accurate portrayal of the characters and their environment is crucial to me, in part because I belong to the milieu described and so I am emotionally invested in it. But more importantly, it is a reaction to the still all-too-frequently broad and schematic portraits, I wanted to show all the complexities of this Franco-Arabic family, all of them deeply involved in the opening of this family restaurant, and therefore looking to a future which does not necessarily mean the denial of their own identity.
It seemed important to me to make a frank and energetic plea for the right to be different, without falling into the trap of the blithe and approximate stigma inherent in exoticism. A fine line to walk, and an essential one, which I believe I am particularly predisposed to because of my own emotionally invested point of view.”
blogged by Shamath Mazumdar, NDTV Lumière
This is a sponsored blog-post written by NDTV Lumière via PFC’s blogsAlly partner program.
Tags: World Cinema
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very limited release..otherwise would have loved to see it in Mumbai somewhere..no problems..it will come..
its being shown at PVR Juhu and Goregaon in Mumbai. But i have noticed that there is always 1 lumiere film playing at PVR Juhu every evening. Have been able to catch quite a few good ones by just walking up to the theatre….definitely an evening well spent.
the film was a little bleh for me personally. i mean the page turner. no depth to anything in the film, and the main problem being the film was toooo subtle for my indian sensibilities.
i don’t remember any memorable scenes except maybe parts which passed with the blink of an eye.
maybe that’s the way the french like their cinema – too subtle. i think if melanie had made out with ariane, the end would have been much more convincing, and closed. that would have been something that would have fixed the end – don’t get me wrong, i don’t always mind open ended endings, if there’s such a phrase, but this one was rather un-convincing to my taste, n experience.
definitely avoidable if you’re not a film school student who has to appreciate art for the sake of art.
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