Honey Cigar (2020)
(Cigare au miel)
Country: FR/ALG/BEL
Technical: col/2.39:1 100m
Director: Kamir Aïnouz
Cast: Zoé Adjani, Amira Casar, Lyès Salem
Synopsis:
At the time of the Algerian civil war in the early 90s, a Kabyle girl of wealthy parents begins her business studies at a lycée in Paris. Her strict upbringing comes into conflict with the expectations clearly placed on her by a socially less refined demographic, while her parents' attempts to find a suitable match from within their own circle prove disastrous.
Review:
Situating the lead character's sexual awakening within her reading of a highly sexed version of Scheherazade, this presumably highly personal début by a female director of Maghrébin descent is also about her growing realization of her part in the health of her parents' own marriage. Revealingly, while she aligns herself with her father when it comes to her view of the political state of affairs in her home country, she ultimately gravitates to her mother as her need for emotional security takes precedence. Though quite absorbing in its charting of an adolescent girl's self-destructive impulse, the film loses its way somewhat as isolation takes hold, using blurred focus and dissolves to draw us into her psyche. Adjani is superb as the proud, magnificent, uncompromising Selma, but Casar is equally fine as the mother, passionately devoted to her daughter but determined to assert the rights of her sex by returning to a gynaecology practice back in Algiers. Emotionally claustrophobic and politically self-aware, this affecting portrait of an immigrant girl's experience is beautifully made but never quite comes to the boil.
(Cigare au miel)
Country: FR/ALG/BEL
Technical: col/2.39:1 100m
Director: Kamir Aïnouz
Cast: Zoé Adjani, Amira Casar, Lyès Salem
Synopsis:
At the time of the Algerian civil war in the early 90s, a Kabyle girl of wealthy parents begins her business studies at a lycée in Paris. Her strict upbringing comes into conflict with the expectations clearly placed on her by a socially less refined demographic, while her parents' attempts to find a suitable match from within their own circle prove disastrous.
Review:
Situating the lead character's sexual awakening within her reading of a highly sexed version of Scheherazade, this presumably highly personal début by a female director of Maghrébin descent is also about her growing realization of her part in the health of her parents' own marriage. Revealingly, while she aligns herself with her father when it comes to her view of the political state of affairs in her home country, she ultimately gravitates to her mother as her need for emotional security takes precedence. Though quite absorbing in its charting of an adolescent girl's self-destructive impulse, the film loses its way somewhat as isolation takes hold, using blurred focus and dissolves to draw us into her psyche. Adjani is superb as the proud, magnificent, uncompromising Selma, but Casar is equally fine as the mother, passionately devoted to her daughter but determined to assert the rights of her sex by returning to a gynaecology practice back in Algiers. Emotionally claustrophobic and politically self-aware, this affecting portrait of an immigrant girl's experience is beautifully made but never quite comes to the boil.
(Cigare au miel)
Country: FR/ALG/BEL
Technical: col/2.39:1 100m
Director: Kamir Aïnouz
Cast: Zoé Adjani, Amira Casar, Lyès Salem
Synopsis:
At the time of the Algerian civil war in the early 90s, a Kabyle girl of wealthy parents begins her business studies at a lycée in Paris. Her strict upbringing comes into conflict with the expectations clearly placed on her by a socially less refined demographic, while her parents' attempts to find a suitable match from within their own circle prove disastrous.
Review:
Situating the lead character's sexual awakening within her reading of a highly sexed version of Scheherazade, this presumably highly personal début by a female director of Maghrébin descent is also about her growing realization of her part in the health of her parents' own marriage. Revealingly, while she aligns herself with her father when it comes to her view of the political state of affairs in her home country, she ultimately gravitates to her mother as her need for emotional security takes precedence. Though quite absorbing in its charting of an adolescent girl's self-destructive impulse, the film loses its way somewhat as isolation takes hold, using blurred focus and dissolves to draw us into her psyche. Adjani is superb as the proud, magnificent, uncompromising Selma, but Casar is equally fine as the mother, passionately devoted to her daughter but determined to assert the rights of her sex by returning to a gynaecology practice back in Algiers. Emotionally claustrophobic and politically self-aware, this affecting portrait of an immigrant girl's experience is beautifully made but never quite comes to the boil.