L'AUTRE MONDE
THE OTHER WORLD |
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Director:
Merzak Allouache
Screenplay: Merzak Allouache
Cast: Yasmine: Marie Brahimi
Hakim: Karim Bouaiche
Rachid: Nazim Boudjenah
Aldjia: Michèle Moretti
L’officier: Abdelkrim Bahloul
Running time: 95 minutes
Production: France/Algeria, 2001
Rating: Not rated (violence, brief nudity and sex)
Gauge: 35mm (color)
Language: French & Arabic
Distributor: Art Mattan
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"Allouache
shows the hidden face, sensed but never seen, of this dirty war. With
The Other World he offers an intelligent, sensitive and gripping
account of the new war in Algeria... This isn't fiction, but poetry.
A percussive poetry." George de Lassalle, Afrik.com.
"I think that violence, as intolerable as it may be, rarely stems
solely from religious fanaticism. It often takes root in individual
revolt, a response to poor living conditions which are resented like
a profound injustice." From an interview with Merzak Allouache. |
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From the director
of Bab El-Oued City comes another uncompromising account
of the ongoing political and religious turmoil in Algeria, this
time from the perspective of a naïve young woman visiting the
country for the first time. Born in France of Algerian parents,
Yasmine dons a djellabah, the traditional clothing of Muslim women,
and flies to Algiers in search of her lost lover, Rachid. In the
bustling, modern capital she stays with her cousin, a former feminist
activist, who tells her, “It’s everyone for himself. Algeria’s
been saved, so we’re told. What’s dead is dead. What’s
alive is alive.” But when, on a tip from an army officer, Yasmine
journeys into the countryside to the place where Rachid was last
heard from, her taxi is ambushed by a band of Muslim extremists
and she barely escapes alive. Faced with the contradictions of a
country at war with itself, where modernity vies with tradition,
worldly desires with religious fervor, Yasmine becomes all the more
desperate to find and save Rachid, eventually travelling alone deep
into the dangerous desert. Suspenseful and consistently surprising,
beautifully shot in rugged landscapes, the film raises a host of
issues about the clash of cultures and the place of religion, but
wisely refrains from offering easy answers.
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| PHOTO Art
Mattan |
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