Customer Reviews

Inch'Allah Dimanche

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Humans look for a peaceful dwelling on the earth. Homesickness is a characteristic of human existence. We belong to where we feel at home.

I must admit that there seems to be flaws in story and some problems with character development. However this originates from the nature of narrative style the director Yamina Benguigui prefers. You must have heard the literary writing style called "flow or stream of consciousness" to which James Joyce's "Ulysses" shown as an example. In the same manner, the film tells the story as a "flow of memories", most probably from a child's point of view. Reading an interview with Yamina Benguigui, I learn that the texture of the work is personal.

Childhood memories are sometimes clear and sometimes obscure. And a child's perception of the events is mainly based on images. So this explains the power and emotional impact of some scenes in the film: for ex. Zouida's breaking the window with bare hand. Or think of the old French couple's garden. They compete for the best garden award. On the other hand, the Algerian family's garden is chaotic. And the garden is not their own yet, the children can not play there as they wish. Around the symbolism of garden, we get a from-inside look at the emigrant psychology in its naive form through a child's eye.

The finesse with which the Zouida is built is just beautiful - she just shines. The movie is not stereotypical at all. The film also doesn't fall into the trap of making the ending happy and conclusive - at the end you're just left with a smile on your face and feeling like Zouida is actually somewhere out there living her life. The supporting actors are perfect, from the bus driver to the neighbors to the grocery store clerk. The pace of the movie is that of a lullaby - a still, sad, lullaby. This movie deserves all the praise.

Inch'Allah Dimanche brings to life the experiences of an Algerian woman reunited with her husband in France. Although it is not fully representative in all aspects of an immigrant's life, the movie highlights certain problems of female immigrants. For instance, her feeling of isolation is well portrayed through her relationship with her neighbors and her family. This isolation, due to her role in the family, a language barrier and her homesickness, is one of the main themes in the film. Domestic violence is also portrayed in the relationship she has with her husband.
Not all Algerians live in the suburbs (which are a mixture of immigrants and working class French). The husband seemed to have a stable job and he had been living in France for the past 10 years. There is a possibility he created a financial base so that he could provide for his family.
I would say this is a must see. I would also like to recommend Esquive if anyone would like a good representation of adolescence in the suburbs.

One of the best things about the Film Movement series is that it allows one to see films from cultures very unlike our own. The French/Algerian offering Inch Allah Dimanche is one of those films that I never would have seen had I not belonged to the club. In its simplest terms the film details what it takes for an immigrant to be assimilated into a new culture.

Zouina (Fejria Deliba) has just been torn from her family in Algiers in order to move to 1970's France to be with a husband that she barely knows. Living in a cramped house with her mother-in-law (Rabia Mokeddem) proves to be a challnge that at times seems more than Zouina can bear.

In her new country Zouina must learn to either preserve her old way of doing things or adapt to the changing world around her. Through the help of a young factory worker (Mathilde Seigner) and a French war widow (Marie-France Pisier) Zouina starts her development as a modern French subject to the great disdain of her husband and mother-in -law.

As usual Film Movement does a great job in bringing to our attention a film that was not often seen except on the festival circuit. The film does not have much in the way of special features but does include the short Schwarzfahrer which one the 1992 Academy Award which presents a unique take on prejudice..

Very moving story of a homesick female immigrant moving to France. I thought her performance was outstanding and very authentic. The only thnig I didnt like was the near fantasy ending. Yet a very good drama all the way around. Nobody mentioned the music in the film but it was excellent as well. Recommended.

According to many accounts, this film portrays what is the reality of married life for many Muslim women - treated as something between a servant and a prisoner in their own home. Set in the 1970s, this film follows the experience of an Algerian woman, who with her three young children and mother-in-law joins her husband, a guest worker in France. Forced to remain at home rather than be exposed to the corrupting influences of the world outside, she is brow-beaten by her mother-in-law and physically beaten for perceived lapses from the rigid expectations of her husband. Nonetheless, at risk to life and limb, she seizes brief opportunities to escape from home with her children in search of another Algerian family she has heard of in the neighborhood.

Actress Fejira Deliba is wonderful in the role of the wife, Zouina. Beleaguered at home, she is undefeated and reaches out to the alien culture around her, listening to game shows and talk shows on the radio, and making friends with two French women, one of them a neighbor who brings her contraband in the form of cosmetics. A third woman, who lives next door, is obsessed with her showcase backyard garden and together with her husband introduces a farcical element in an otherwise disturbing portrayal of domestic abuse. And as other reviewers have noted, the fantasy ending does nothing to dismiss the dismay and anguish in Zouina's growing realization of her actual situation.

This film seemed intriguing, because it was supposed to deal with the issues of immigration, integration and the plight of women, so I rented it. It was not a bad film, but I cannot say that I really enjoyed it. Characters were two-dimensional and not well-developed. The husband was a total brute, both physical and emotional. Zouina was obviously the victim and I felt sorry for her, but she was not a very likeable person. She seemed to be cold, distant and treated local residents with distrust. Nicole, for example, had to work very hard to maintain a relationship with her. Perhaps she was supposed to be that way because of her assigned role and misery. But when she met another Algerian woman, it seemed that the two instantly became as close as two people who have known each other for ages, at least until the other Algerian woman figured out why Zouina came by and kicked her out of the house. I found it very surprising that all these French people around her - like the missing colonel's wife, bus driver, Nicole and even the grocery store clerk - liked her so much, took such an interest in her and tried to help her, even before getting to know her and her situation. All French people seemed remarkably well-disposed and welcoming, except the neighbors, the elderly couple. They were not xenophobic but understandably suspicious of their new unfriendly and uncaring neighbors because so much of their lives was invested in the building's garden.

Some of the details in the plot did not make much sense to me. Maybe there is a cultural disconnect here and perhaps someone else could explain them. For example, why did Zouina, who was generally aloof with strangers and very obedient to her family, strip to her undergarments and fight the neighbor lady over the soccer ball? Why did she bring home the corpse of the dog, which belonged to the missing colonel's wife, and buried it in the back yard? Why did she throw out the damaged makeup and cosmetics on the street - is it to attract Nicole's attention (as it happened, Nicole was just walking by), or is it an Algerian custom to dispose of the garbage that way? Finally, however lonely and desperate she was, what could she have expected from another Algerian family?

I sympathize with the plight of women in Africa, Asia and the Middle East and I think that there should be more films like this one to raise people's awareness. I wish that the characters were a bit more appealing and understandable, however. Films like this should bring us, people of different backgrounds, closer together and help us to re-discover the things that we all have in common. I would like to be of help to someone like Zouina in principle but, as much as I hate to admit it, this film made me realize that I would not want to live next to that particular family, even without that monster of a mother-in-law - they just would not make good neighbors.

There are not enough works available in the United States that deal with immigration to France and the life experiences of beurs (the French expression for North Africans in France). This was a helpful, though imperfect, intervention.

A mother arrives in France with her mean mother-in-law and three children to reunite with her husband. The film is filled with stock characters: the xenophobic neighbor, the diversity-loving neighbor, etc. You can tell that this has a limited budget because there are few characters and the space in which they film is very small. The script isn't that strong either.

I am glad they chose a woman as the main character. Unfortunately, her sadness seemed forced. She'd cry at the drop of a pin and no one would be there to comfort her. The husband seemed ineffective.

This movie mentions that families reunited with male workers in 1974. The film doesn't say whether it takes place then or not. At one point, the mother laments that there are no other Algerians around with whom to practice their culture. However, I imagine this situation is far from true in the France of 2005. Further, I hear that beurs live in crowded housing in the suburbs (which are bad, unlike in the US) as opposed to the nice house with its nice garden in this film.

I know the practice is not sexual, but the husband kisses another Algerian man approximately five times as they converse. Since both of the characters are hot, it was sexy to watch. The actor who played the father looks a lot like the light-skinned, African-American actor Roger Guenveur Smith.

This film is not as strong as "Roots" or "Mi Familia." Still, it was helpful to see another tale about people of color and their immigration to the West.