La graine et le mulet

A harbour in the South of France. Sete, to be precise. The heavy manual labour in and around the harbour gradually makes way for other activities. Service industries, tourism, catering. Slimane Beiji, divorced, in his sixties, and of Algerian origins, has worked for years on a shipping wharf, but has to accept redundancy. He wants to use his severance pay to convert an old fishing cutter into a North African speciality restaurant. That is more complicated than he thinks. Rym, the teenage daughter of his landlady and mistress, helps him.
Kechiche unfolds Slimane’s complex family affairs mainly in apparently improvised conversations at the kitchen table of his ex-wife, Saoud. There the extended family turns up on Sundays for a delicious couscous with fish, the dish from the title. That private dinner is reflected in the second part of the film, when Slimane decides to offer a free starter in his restaurant in order to help get things going. In working out the plot – will the couscous get there in time? – Kechiche succeeds in turning his film into an epic in which acting, form, substance and analysis all come together at one point. The characteristics of his many characters come together to reveal a deep social analysis. With Secret of the grain, Kechiche makes it clear that he is the most interesting chronicler of the life of North African emigrants in Europe. (GT)

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