Couscous
Director: Abdellatif Kechiche
Cert: 15 French with subtitles
Time: 2 hrs 34 mins
Winner of numerous Foreign Film Festival awards this drama, about the daily struggles of an Arab family living in France, is initially engaging. The French have a knack of bringing interest to the most mundane domestic circumstances and in this regard Couscous is no different.
The story centres on Slimane (Habib Boufares) a ship yard worker who, at 61, is finding it difficult to keep his large and somewhat dysfunctional family solvent. Things take a distinct turn for the worse when the ship yard for whom he has worked for 35 years, makes him redundant. Being a proud man and with the help and encouragement of his stepdaughter, he uses his redundancy to buy a shortly to be scrapped boat and transforms into a floating restaurant. The house speciality will be Couscous.
The film succeeds admirably in capturing the love, loyalty and squabbles of a large family struggling to get by in an often unwelcome land but as we draw ever nearer to the restaurant’s opening night, there is a sense that things may not quite turn out as one would hope. Which is indeed the case. Unfortunately, in trying to prolong the agony of disappointment, the film causes one to lose interest much like the dinner guests getting bored wondering what has happened to their food. As a result I reached the point where I was no longer bothered how things turned out. Which is a shame, because the unsentimental ending is rather shocking.
Rating: 3/5
CA
