THE OPINION OF THE “WORLD” – MUST SEE
It is rare that a film press manager, a profession well known to specialized journalists, much less to the general public, dares to move into direction. This is the current case of Hassan Guerrar, 57 years old, forty of them in the cinema, known as the white wolf in the sector for his interpersonal skills and his “big mouth”, where for a long time they called him “François”. before, about fifteen years ago, he was asked to adopt his original name in view of the self-reconquest he was carrying out at that time.
This detail may seem anecdotal, but we clearly see the collective implication it may have in the destiny of this man, violently divided between Algeria and France, in a context of family drama that very early leaves him to his fate, without the slightest luggage. Despite a success achieved both with teeth and with great intelligence, today he remains faithful to Barbès, which is in reality this small homeland that he loves so much, neither completely here nor completely there.
Let’s not delve into the issue of Barbès, little Algeriaan autobiographical film, if not claimed, at least strongly suggested. In it appears (under the guise of the rapper Sofiane – or Fianso, Sofiane Zermani in marital status) Malek, a computer businessman in his forties, a quiet and single person, who lives in Barbès and no longer maintains a relationship with his family who He stayed in Algeria. , without us knowing the reason.
old wounds
One fine morning, his nephew Ryad (Khalil Ben Gharbia) arrives at his house unannounced. He welcomes it. In all dramaturgical logic, his arrival seems to open up to a slow unveiling of Malek’s family situation, the origins of his suffering and its possible resolution. This will just be a very, and probably too allusive, case: the mourning of a mother who was not so loving, the old wounds that open again, the brothers who tear themselves apart on this occasion. We won’t know much more.
No doubt limited by modesty, reluctant to expose an intimate truth that would imply both cruelty and rawness of feelings, the director gently takes a tangent to explore another direction, that of the hyperrealist painting of a Barbès where the infernal chronicle of poverty and drugs, especially among the youngest, and kind, angry, colorful theater, popular eloquence and solidarity coexist. A popular aura that the simultaneous presence of rappers Sofiane Zermani and Soolking can only magnify. The result is a tragicomedy that really walks a tightrope, and from which you have to imagine the height of the fall from which it protects its author to understand the exact measurement.
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