Paris and “Sex and the City” in 2008

Last Wednesday night, I went out with some of my American friends in Paris to see the film “Sex and the City.” We met near the Parc de Bercy and walked to the Simone de Beauvoir footbridge where we took a group photo of us in our Samantha, Carrie, Charlotte, and Miranda themed finest. Then we headed off to the film at the Cour St. Emilion cinema.

Sadly, as much as I loved the series, I wasn’t much of a fan of the film. In the past, the series had been more about how one could live without depending on a man, and in the film it seemed like Carrie depended on Mr. Big. The New York Times‘ Manohla Dargis made an intelligent comment on the film in its review when she noted:

“There is something depressingly stunted about this movie; something desperate too. It isn’t that Carrie has grown older or overly familiar. It’s that awash in materialism and narcissism, a cloth flower pinned to her dress where cool chicks wear their Obama buttons, this It Girl has become totally Ick.”

Considering the current political and economic climate that we are living in, Dargis’ critique seems right on.

“Française” de Souad El-Bouhati

Last weekend I went out to see the film “Française,” directed by Souad El-Bouhati. This is El-Bouhati’s first long film and so I wasn’t expecting an excellent film despite the presence of Hafsia Herzi in the leading role. Herzi won the César award this year for “Meilleur espoir féminin” after her role in Abdellatif Kechiche’s La graine et le mulet. “Française” opens with the story of a Moroccan family living in France when the father loses his job and suddenly is broke. Faced with this situation, the parents decide to return to their native Morocco with their three young children.

Hafsia Herzi plays the role of Sophia in the film, and as the middle child of the couple, she is the most jolted by this sudden move from France to Morocco. The family returns to Morocco when Sophia is about ten years old and we the audience then return to her life in Morocco eight years later as a university student.

The best part of this film is that it avoids many clichés of life in France versus life in Morocco. The family returns to Morocco where we see that they are living a successful and prosperous life. Their family house is situated around a farm with breathtaking views of a surrounding valley. Sophia enjoys working in the fields of her family’s farm when she is not excelling at her studies at the local university. Nevertheless, the problem for Sophia is that she feels divided between her quickly uprooted existence in France and her life in Morocco. Sophia is after all French since she was born in France. She rejects Moroccan cultural norms which dictate that she should get married soon after having finished her studies.

In the film, Sophia eventually rebels and the most poignant scene in the film shows Sophia in the midst of translating Baudelaire’s “L’Invitation au voyage” from French into Arabic. As she lingers over the translation of the line “Aimer à loisir/ aimer et mourir/ au pays qui te ressemble!”, we the audience get a deeper understanding of the hybrid sense of identity which haunts Sophia.

In brief, I highly recommend this film for its cinematography, its intelligent depiction of the questions surrounding identity, and for the commanding presence of Hafsia Herzi in the role of Sophia. A voir!

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