Privacy is, by definition, inscrutable. And filming it is, by definition, complicated. We will not say impossible. Max Scheler spoke of love as a transparent knowledge of the other who, at the moment of offering us their intimacy, ceases to be, also by definition, someone different from us. We are one with the loved one. Mounia Meddour He has two films with this one, both with the proverbial actress Lyna Khoudri protagonist, determined to portray intimacy. No more. She can add that her object of study is feminine intimacy, but she seems redundant. What interests the director of Papicha, dreams of freedom (2019) and now from Houria (Freedom) It is that strange and almost miraculous moment in which the camera disappears and the spectator approaches something like the transparent intimacy of the cinema. Suddenly, the viewer is one with what is seen on the screen. Pure love. Pure cinema.
The story is told of a dancer who, in order to fulfill her dream of dancing, must first pass one of those tests that define a life. And because of that she loses her voice and breaks her leg. In the background, as in her previous film, you can see the landscape of a troubled country where it is difficult for women to be a woman or a simple citizen. What follows is a fable about the power of dance to heal. But it is also a story about solidarity among a group of women who have been damaged by force. And this without giving up being an X-ray of a world, ours, divided between those who can and those who dream of power. The result is a confusing melodrama in the narrative and somewhat exaggerated in the forms. But, and this is what counts, stopped at some moments of dazzling clarity where a group of women recognize each other to the point of loving each other. And so on until reaching the transparency of intimacy, the intimacy of bodies and of the cinema itself.
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DIRECTORBy: Mounia Meddour. INTERPRETERS: Lyna Khoudri, Rachida Brakni, Francis Nijim, Salim Kissari. DURATION: 1O4 MINUTES. NATIONALITY: Algeria.