28
Nov/16

POETIC AND POLITICAL — THE CINEMA OF RABAH AMEUR-ZAÏMECHE: BACK HOME

28
Nov/16
BACK HOME

Kamel (Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche) and Louisa (Meryem Serbah) are outsiders in their own village in BACK HOME

CINÉSALON: BACK HOME (BLED NUMBER ONE) (Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche, 2006)
French Institute Alliance Française, Florence Gould Hall
55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
Tuesday, November 29, $13, 4:00 & 7:30
Series continues Tuesdays through December 13
212-355-6100
www.fiaf.org

FIAF’s Cinésalon series “Poetic and Political: The Cinema of Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche” continues November 29 with Ameur-Zaïmeche’s second feature, Bled Number One (Back Home), the follow-up and kind of prequel to Wesh Wesh and the second part of an unofficial trilogy that concludes with Adhen (Dernier Maquis). Kamel (Ameur-Zaïmeche) has returned home to his isolated village of Loulouj in northeast Algeria after having spent several years in France. Meanwhile, Louisa (Meryem Serbah) has left her husband, Ahmed (Ramzy Bedia), but her parents (Meriem Ameur-Zaïmeche and Larkdari Ameur-Zaïmeche) and brother (Soheb Ameur-Zaïmeche) insist she go back to him, saying she is bringing shame on the family. Both Kamel and Louisa feel like outsiders in their own village, which is balancing precipitously between the past and the future. The desperados, a group of young men who are spreading fundamentalist Muslim views, is battling with the patriots, the longtime members of the community, threatening violence on anyone who doesn’t follow the letter of the Koran. During Zerda, the pre-Islamic ritual of slaughtering and serving a bull in which the women are kept separate from the men, Kamel, in his ever-present orange hat, decides to be with the women instead, and the men, feeling shunned, remind him over and over that he is not to eat with them. The treatment of women in this patriarchal society is a central focus of the film. Louisa wants to break free of the chains that bind her, but she takes a bigger risk every time she strays from accepted, outdated convention. And the more Kamel proves to be his own man, the more the other men want to be rid of him. In fact, the patriots closely watch the town border, refusing entry to anyone they don’t want inside.

The film, which was written by Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche and Louise Thermes, is photographed in a documentary style, with long shots both in time and distance; often what is being said among the characters can’t be heard and is not translated into English, as it is more for setting a realistic pace and a naturalistic flow. The muted, faded greens and blues of the village residences stand in stark contrast to the lush green mountainside and bright blue sky. The few times there is music, it turns out that it is being played live by Rodolphe Burger by the sea; at one point he sings William Blake’s “The Little Vagabond,” about God and the Devil. Bled Number One (“bled” in Algerian means “field” or “terrain”) is a subtle, poetic film laden with sociopolitical undertones, a melancholic yet beautiful work from an auteur who deserves a bigger audience. “To write Bled Number One, I didn’t return at all to Algeria to capture something about today’s youth there. I wrote this story based on my holiday memories,” Ameur-Zaïmeche has said. “But it is also because I felt that things hadn’t really changed, that time passes differently there. You have the time to reflect and be, faced with the elements. . . . A film is a gesture, a burst, a job, an enterprise, an action. An action in life, a pure lesson of life. It is here that we grasp something alive. For it is necessary to remain alive, no matter what else happens.” Bursting with life, Bled Number One is screening at FIAF on November 29 at 4:00 and 7:30; the later show will be followed by a Q&A with ArteEast executive director Jaime-Faye Bean, and both shows will end with a wine and beer reception. “Poetic and Political: The Cinema of Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche” continues December 6 with Smugglers’ Songs before concluding December 13 with Story of Judas.