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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
The south of France seen in director-writer Abdellatif Kechiche's The Secret of the Grain is a far cry from the rolling countryside, quaint little towns, and romantic seaside resorts pictured in tourist guidebooks. The port city of Sète, where the story happens, is a gritty, charmless place, home to a community of French-speaking Arab immigrants for whom life is a quotidian challenge merely to get by. Among them is 61-year-old Slimane Beiji (Habib Boufares), whose problems are legion: his hours as a dockworker have been cut back, his ex-wife nags him about dilatory support payments, his thoroughly unreliable elder son is a serial adulterer who barely acknowledges his wife and young child. But it's not all bad; this taciturn, stoic man also has other children who love him, a girlfriend who tries to comfort him, and, in his lover's daughter Rym (newcomer Hafsia Herzi, whose performance is the best in the movie), a smart, feisty young advocate who's genuinely devoted to him. Slimane also has a plan: having bought a rusted-out wreck of a ship, he wants to convert it into a restaurant staffed by his family and starring his ex's delicious fish couscous (hence the French title: La graine et le mulet--as in the fish, not the haircut). How all of this unfolds, including Rym helping Slimane negotiate the tedious bureaucratic roadblocks standing between him and his dream, is absorbing, if not exactly riveting. Kechiche seems more interested in creating texture than telling a story; this is a long (two and a half hours) film with a great deal more talk than action, dominated by various extended family scenes featuring handheld camera work and lingering close-ups. But viewers who hang in there will be well rewarded, as the tale builds to a bittersweet climax highlighted by Rym's belly dance, an extraordinary sequence that is much better seen than described (a 45-minute re-edit of this scene is the highlight of the excellent bonus material, which also features an interview with the director and several featurettes). --Sam Graham
Product Description
Winner of four César awards, including best picture and director, Abdellatif Kechiche’s The Secret of the Grain is a stirring drama about the daily joys and struggles of a bustling French-Arab family. It has the texture of a documentary but a classic, almost Shakespearean structure: when patriarch Slimane acts on his wish to open a port-side restaurant specializing in his ex-wife’s fish couscous, the extended clan’s passions and problems explode in riveting drama, leading to an engrossing, suspenseful climax. With sensitivity and grit, The Secret of the Grain celebrates the role food plays in family life and gets to the core of contemporary immigrant experience.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 21 people found the following review helpful
By Daniel S.
Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase
***** 2007. Written and directed by Abdel Kechiche. Four French Academy awards (Best movie, director, writing and promising actress), Prix Louis Delluc and five awards in Venice. The difficult integration of the Arab born community in the social life of the Port of Sète, France. After Games of Love and Chance, a movie that was also chosen as best French film in 2003, Abdel Kechiche returns with this allegorical vision of integration. The French title, LA GRAINE ET LE MULET aka The Seed and the Mullet refers to the culinary specialty, a couscous with fish, the hero of THE SECRET OF THE GRAIN wants to propose in his restaurant. If you consider that, on top of this important theme, magnificently handled, the performance of the actors is human and natural, you'll understand why this film has to be considered as the best French film of last year. A masterpiece that should already be in your library.
14 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
The French have a habit of making movies that start off very slow, and then capture your attention, not with action, but with emotion and story. This is the case with this story about a shipyard worker that is getting laid off. The tensions that emerge, with his nagging ex-wife, his children and their families, with whom he keeps as close as he can, and his girlfriend and her daughter who thinks of him as a father, combine with his efforts to open a restaurant on a boat that he bought.
What could have been a testament to tenacity, the power of love, friendship, community and family however becomes a moral tale where the morale is: "Why bother?"
The belly dance scene by the girlfriend's daughter Rym (Hafsia Herzi) trying to save the restaurant is outstanding. At the end, just as everyone, friends and enemies, are pitching in to save the day, the director decides to finish the story, not as an elegy, or an inspiring tale, but as a mockery to the power of human effort.
It reminded me of "The Bicycle Thief" Only in color.
What could have been a testament to tenacity, the power of love, friendship, community and family however becomes a moral tale where the morale is: "Why bother?"
The belly dance scene by the girlfriend's daughter Rym (Hafsia Herzi) trying to save the restaurant is outstanding. At the end, just as everyone, friends and enemies, are pitching in to save the day, the director decides to finish the story, not as an elegy, or an inspiring tale, but as a mockery to the power of human effort.
It reminded me of "The Bicycle Thief" Only in color.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
THE SECRET OF THE GRAIN (LA GRAINE ET LE MULET) as written and directed by Abdellatif Kechiche offers the viewer a different version of the importance of family and the need to bond for survival. Kechiche is known for casting his films with unknown actors (or even fist time actors) and while some may view this as self-indulgent exercise in proving that a film can be made without the aid of a talented cast, others will appreciate the fine performances he is able to draw from both unknowns (Habib Boufares) and stars on the rise (Hafsia Herzi).
The story is fairly straightforward (despite the fact that it takes 2 1/2 hours to tell!): in the Southern France port city of Sète, populated with many French-speaking Arab immigrants who eke out a living repairing boats and fishing, lives senior citizen Slimane Beiji (Habib Boufares) and his friends and family - an ex-wife chronically angry about missed alimony payments, an adulterer son, and girlfriend who satisfies him and also has a daughter Rym (Hafsia Herzl) who adores him. Slimane struggles with his job, has his hours cut back severely, and together with his friends who also are suffering economically, bond more strongly. Eventually Slimane comes upon the idea of establishing a restaurant housed in a deserted old ship that he purchases and with the help from his family and his friends (especially supported by Rym) he opens his restaurant that features the fish with couscous recipe of his ex-wife.
The reason this too-long film ultimately satisfies is the completely spontaneous atmosphere created by director Kechiche: the dialogue feels completely improvised, as though we happen to be passing by Sète and overheard a colony of down and out immigrants from North Africa transform their fates. It may take a lot of patience to sit through the first half of the film, but the end result is rewarding. Grady Harp, September 10
The story is fairly straightforward (despite the fact that it takes 2 1/2 hours to tell!): in the Southern France port city of Sète, populated with many French-speaking Arab immigrants who eke out a living repairing boats and fishing, lives senior citizen Slimane Beiji (Habib Boufares) and his friends and family - an ex-wife chronically angry about missed alimony payments, an adulterer son, and girlfriend who satisfies him and also has a daughter Rym (Hafsia Herzl) who adores him. Slimane struggles with his job, has his hours cut back severely, and together with his friends who also are suffering economically, bond more strongly. Eventually Slimane comes upon the idea of establishing a restaurant housed in a deserted old ship that he purchases and with the help from his family and his friends (especially supported by Rym) he opens his restaurant that features the fish with couscous recipe of his ex-wife.
The reason this too-long film ultimately satisfies is the completely spontaneous atmosphere created by director Kechiche: the dialogue feels completely improvised, as though we happen to be passing by Sète and overheard a colony of down and out immigrants from North Africa transform their fates. It may take a lot of patience to sit through the first half of the film, but the end result is rewarding. Grady Harp, September 10
Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Secret of the Grain
Also marketed as "Couscous", this Franco-Tunisien production gives a good insights to a North African family living in France. Read more
Published 21 days ago by Richard A. Cambridge
5.0 out of 5 stars
Slimane and his adoptive daughter
Another great and sensitive film on immigration in 21-century France by Abdellatif Kechiche. The setting is a small fishing town of the Med
Published 1 month ago by M
3.0 out of 5 stars
Very Judgmental
At first I was very impressed and enjoyed the cultural angle. Then there was the sudden shift the business idea. Read more
Published 13 months ago by pet owner
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding
This is beautiful, tender, sad, funny, heartbreaking and with tension that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Read more
Published 18 months ago by Deborah M. Gonzales
5.0 out of 5 stars
A study of family
I saw this movie on IFC and loved it. I plan on owning it in the future. It is a heartfelt story of a family trying to run a family restaurant amidst family problems. Read more
Published 18 months ago by Michael L. Sweet
5.0 out of 5 stars
Engaging & Dynamic Family Drama
What an engaging, amusing and realistic film - from the pacing of conversations, the arguments, the histrionics, the flirting, the gossip, the Sunday dinner - just overall... Read more
Published 20 months ago by Jenn
5.0 out of 5 stars
The bitter taste of desperation!
Abdel Kechiche built a supreme story, pregnant of crude realism and powerful narrative force about the epic efforts of an inmigrant (61) who suddenly i fired from his workplace. Read more
Published 24 months ago by Hiram Gomez Pardo
5.0 out of 5 stars
the fufillment of an immigrant's dream
This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film.
Secret of the Grain, known in France as "La graine et le mulet" is the story of a North African... Read more
Secret of the Grain, known in France as "La graine et le mulet" is the story of a North African... Read more
Published on December 26, 2010 by Ted
3.0 out of 5 stars
MAN DOES NOT LIVE BT BREAD ALONE
Enter the immigrant world of Tunisians living in France. Sometimes, life can be hard for no clear reason. Read more
Published on September 6, 2010 by Robin Simmons
4.0 out of 5 stars
Blu-ray: "The Secret of the Grain" is a fantastic film. Awesome...
In 2007, the French-Tunisian film "La graine et le mulet" (translation - "The Grain and the Mulet") from the award-winning director Abdellatif Kechiche would become an award... Read more
Published on August 17, 2010 by Dennis A. Amith (kndy)
