La Graine et le Mulet

France

Synopsis

The city of Sète, on the harbour.
Monsieur Slimani, a broken-down man of sixty, is still working at the shipyard, the job getting harder as the years go by. He's divorced and doing all he can to stay close to his family. A history of break-ups and conflict is always just beneath the surface and money troubles only make matters worse. In these difficult times, it seems everything adds to Monsieur Slimani's feeling of helplessness and failure. He constantly thinks about his one way out - creating his own business, a restaurant.
Not an easy proposition, though, since his slim and irregular income hardly provides what he needs for start-up. But that doesn't stop him from dreaming, and it doesn't stop him from talking about his dream, to his family, among others.
Little by little, the family pulls together around the project, which, for each and every member, becomes the symbol of a better life. Their go-to spirit and unflagging efforts eventually make that dream come true... sort of.

Director's Statement

I began with a popular fantasy, the kind of story they like to tell about in the projects, the myth of those who "made it," or in other words, those who escaped the modern slavery of a nowhere career path by starting their own businesses. And I wanted to treat it with a certain irony, in the way you can with a narrative tale.
So this is an adventure story, one where the narration is closer to that of a tale, with all the digressions, suspensions, etc. that implies, rather than an action film per se.
He is old, poor and Arab and he wants to create something big in order to regain his dignity and help his loved ones get a leg up. Even as I confined myself to concentrating and maintaining interest in this central action, which because of its euphoric and symbolic value was very important to me, paradoxically, I allowed the parentheses to freely pile up, like so many escapades justified by the simple pleasure of contemplating the events in the daily life of a family drama.
In the end, that is the dimension which interests me most. It's about getting close to these characters who are my loved ones, in order to show little things from everyday life. That's why I had to adopt a singular narrative rhythm. Generally, an ongoing action doesn't allow you to stay on one thing too long, but a real family meal or the beginnings of an emotion showing through on someone's face needs screen time to happen.
This marriage between a novelistic dimension and the accurate portrayal of the characters and their environment is crucial to me, in part because I belong to the milieu described and so I am emotionally invested in it. But more importantly, it is a reaction to the still all-too-frequently broad and schematic portraits, I wanted to show all the complexities of this Franco-Arabic family, all of them deeply involved in the opening of this family restaurant, and therefore looking to a future which does not necessarily mean the denial of their own identity.
It seemed important to me to make a frank and energetic plea for the right to be different, without falling into the trap of the blithe and approximate stigma inherent in exoticism. A fine line to walk, and an essential one, which I believe I am particularly predisposed to because of my own emotionally invested point of view.
Abdellatif Kechiche
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Cast & Crew

Directed by: Abdellatif Kechiche

Written by: Abdellatif Kechiche

Produced by: Claude Berri

Cinematography: Lubomir Bakchev

Cast: Habib Boufares (Slimane), Hafsia Herzi (Rym)

Nominations and Awards

  • European Critic’s Award – Prix Fipresci 2008
  • Feature Film Selection 2008