Couscous
A North African shipyard worker on the French Mediterranean plans to spend his redundancy money setting up a restaurant in a disused ship.
"A perfectly paced story of a North African family's struggle in coastal France is told with the wit and wisdom of classical cinema, yet with a very modern take on identity...They delight in North African food and music" (Sight and Sound)
The director "draws out not only the warmth and love that cement the extended family, but also the palable tensions constatly on the boil" (Sight and Sound). "Beautifully filmed with all the right ingredients" (Philip French, The Observer)
THE FILM
Slimane (Habib Boufares) is a 60-year-old man facing a gradual reduction of hours at the shipyard, and, confronted with a future in which his income and self-respect will be whittled away, he opts instead for voluntary redundancy planning to use his payoff to open a fish couscous restaurant on a converted boat. Slowly, he mobilises a network of extended family and friends to help realise his dream.
This is not a foodie feelgood movie nor a miserabilist essay in futility. Slimane is succesful with his plan. But there is a fundamental problem. Slimane is divorced, and the extended family helping him, led by his ex-wife Souad (Bouraouïa Marzouk), are not reconciled to the two new women in his life. These are the owner of the hotel where he lives, Latifa (Hatika Karaoui), with whom he is having a now wilting affair, and her driven grown-up daughter Rym (Hafsia Herzi). Latifa is silently resentful of the fact that Slimane does not want to invest his redundancy money in her hotel and formalise their relationship.
What becomes clear is that the restaurant is not actually Slimane's project. The couscous will be cooked by Souad. The restaurant's existence is really due to the entreprenurialism of Rym. She talks to the town planners, schmoozes the bank managers and superintends the conversion of the boat. The restaurant adventure is therefore built by women who must then smilingly let men take the credit.
It is not clear why Slimane got divorced; it may be that adultery with Latifa was the cause. But if there is a womanising gene, his son, married Majid, has inherited it. His seedy affair with a local woman from the bureaucratic ruling class triggers the fateful crisis at the centre of the movie.
THE DINNER
Since this is a long film, there will be a dinner interval with a two course meal and wine. The film will start at 6:30pm and the interval of at least 60 minutes will be at 7.30pm. Members who do not wish to have the meal are of course welcome to see the film.
Catering will be by Sarah Litchfield of Elm Green.
The original title of the film was La Graine et le Mulet, or The Grain and the Mullet, which are the two main ingredients of couscous. In sympathy with this, the dinner will comprise two courses: the first of fish couscous (baked white fish with charmoula, tomatoes, peppers, preserved lemon and buttered almond and parsley couscous) and the second of Tunisian almond and orange cake with orange salad and yoghurt. Wine will be included in the cost of £10 per head. Mineral water and fruit juice will also be available. You can bring your own wine and other drinks if you wish. Tangerines, dates and Turkish delight will also be provided.