THE GRAIN OF LIFE: Great Cinema at Venice 2007
by Andre Soares
Nigel Andrews’s discusses Abdel Kechiche’s (right) The Grain of Life aka The Grain and the Mullet, in competition at the Venice Film Festival, in the Financial Times:
"… [Made] by a Tunisian-born Frenchman, [the film] was reportedly rejected by Cannes at three hours and still holds out at two and a half in Venice. But it is the closest we have come to great cinema. A day after the press show, it topped the critics’ stars-and-bars chart in the daily trade magazine, displacing Brian de Palma’s Redacted, already praised on these pages.
"Khechiche [sic] made a wonderful little-seen film called L’Esquive — an Eric Rohmer-style comedy acted by gifted immigrants and pieds blancs — and specialises in raising everyday reality to a poetic pitch. In The Grain and the Mullet, a title that in light of the film’s story surely hints at the loaves and fishes miracle (allowing for a Koran-raised artist’s scriptural crossover), a Muslim father threatened with job loss in a French fishing town tries to save his family by opening a floating restaurant."
L’Esquive was the surprise best film winner at the 2004 Césars, defeating strong contenders Les Choristes, A Very Long Engagement, and Kings and Queen. Kechiche also received the best director and best screenplay (with Ghalia Lacroix) awards.
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64th Venice Film Festival: Competition Line-Up
64th Venice Film Festival: Out of Competition Line-Up
Venice Film Festival 2007 - Horizons Sidebar
LUST, CAUTION Controversy at Venice Film Festival 2007
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Woody Allen’s CASSANDRA’S DREAM at the Venice Film Festival 2007
I’M NOT THERE: Bob Dylan Not at the Venice Film Festival 2007
SLEUTH at Venice 2007: To Remake or Not to Remake
Top Contenders for the Venice Film Festival 2007 Awards
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