Archive | Feminist Matters
The Toils of ‘Fatima’
“Fatima” begins slowly and deliberately, and proceeds that way for its entire seventy-eight minutes, like a mother straightening her child’s room. This is appropriate, for it is about an Algerian cleaning woman struggling to raise her two teenage daughters in Lyon, France. The film is a loose adaptation of Priere a la lune (Prayer to the Moon), a short collection of poems and other writings by Fatima Elayoubi, a North African woman who emigrated to France and taught herself the language. Fatima’s onscreen stand-in is played by the nonprofessional actor Soria Zeroual, who really worked as a cleaning woman until being cast in this film.
At times, Zeroual’s lack of acting experience is all too evident – her high, trailing voice can grate; her motions and features can seem frozen – but soon enough you see what director Philippe Faucon saw in her: an unadulterated steadiness that shores her children – and this film – in the face of all adversity. With her veiled head, stricken expression, and broken French, Fatima encounters micro – and macro – aggression daily, yet remains undeterred as she spends long hours cleaning a local factory and the houses of unhappy, wealthy women. Nothing can sway her from the goal of supporting Nesrine (Zita Hanrot), her eighteen-year-old daughter in medical school, and Souad (Kenza Noah Aiche), her fifteen-year-old daughter who is as surly with her mother as she is with her schoolmates and teachers. Continue Reading →
‘Into the Forest,’ Into a Utopia?
About a pair of sisters struggling after the breakdown of the national grid, “Into the Forest” may get lost in the glut of post-apocalyptic films we’ve seen since 2001. If that’s the case, it’ll be a shame, for this adaptation of Jean Hegland’s gently sci-fi novel is a more intimate film than many of those zombie-busters and doomsday thrillers. It also is more finely hewn, which makes sense as it’s the latest offering from Patricia Rozema, who has directed such thoughtful fare as “Mansfield Park” (1999) and the oft-overlooked “I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing” (1987). (If you’ve not seen that sweetly oddball coming-out film, do yourself a favor and track it down.)
Eva (Evan Rachel Wood) and Nell (Ellen Page) live with their widower father (Callum Keith Rennie) in a North California mountain home that’s a study in lovely isolation. Nell is studying for university admission examinations; Eva is dead-set on acing a national dance audition; and both rely on the nearest town, many miles away, as well as their slightly futuristic technology for community and training. In this way, the family is even more dependent on screens and gadgets than most Americans. But when a seemingly permanent blackout grips the country, they seem better prepared than most because they’re well-acquainted with power outages up there in the woods. After a visit to town reveals abandoned stores, empty stations, and townspeople dangerously adrift, they retreat to their quarters, which are well stocked with canned organics, live chickens, and back-up generators galore. Then their father is killed in a fluke accident, and the bubble bursts for good; after burying their remaining parent, the girls must figure out how to ration their supplies, defend themselves from invaders, and maintain their sanity. Continue Reading →