The Secret of the Grain (2007)

Wow! Such a good movie.

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

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

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.

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.

I am afraid this is a movie talking to a very specific audience: Arab immigrants in France. Much as Woody Allen movies may only be fully understood by New York Jews, also because of cultural references unintelligible to anybody else, even New Yorkers, so this movie contains few universal values, as it tells a sad story in a not particularly talented way. Camera usage is "modern", though not so much to make you feel seasick, characters are fairly cardboard ones, with very few being anything more. And I must admit I dislike the ending, for reasons that will be obvious once you watch it. An unnecessary long, sad, tired story of unhappy people in an unhappy country (which France is not, to French and most Western Europeans, by the way). Some commentator here compared it to neorealism. Linking this to neorealist movies is unwarranted: there is very little depth here. All is very superficial, skin deep, and does not last long. A movie which is unlikely to make you think, unfortunately.