The film is a tryptich, a kind of day in the lives of three groups of people linked by tragedy and coincidence. The vignettes work themselves out in a Tarantino like chronology where you start in the middle and move forward and back through time, placing the onus on the individual to arrange the narrative in your head, in time and space, and in that Jungian sense, becoming a part of the narrative by taking an active hand in writing it.
The first vignette concerns a young man by the name of Ney who digs ditches for a living. He supports his blind mother and adolescent sister. As the sole bread winner and head of the small but tight house hold the respondibility for the survival of the family is places squarely on his shoulders. Fast money eventually seduces him when his friends introduce him to Mr. Monsour, who says "Let's be honest, we are breaking the law, but we will make lots of money." The dynamics of the family, albeit in a foreign tongue, aren't that far removed from western portrayals of poverty and the struggle for survival in an urban landscape. Ney is living in the globalized world where American Rap music dominates, the soundtrack of the film never really touches native music, but instead keeps its frenetic hand held pace with angry hip hop, youths break dancing, chase scenes, over exposed cinematography where shapes become ethereal and rooftop scapes of Ney jumping rope to stay in shape. The money flows, for a while, but like all crime sagas, the street catches up. Ney is wounded in an altercation and sent to the hospital. He recovers and seeks revenge. You know from the first five minutes that this will end badly, as you see the end, a shoot out in an apartment that leaves 3 people dead.
Flash forward, there's one survivor in the bathroom, you don't know this until the second vignette that centers around the survivor, Salim, and his mother who is in a coma after being shot, taken in by an American ex-pat art professor who is the wife of the slain father's brother. Did you follow me on that one? The man who shot Ney and that Ney went back to shoot had a brother that married an American woman, Lisa, her husband died some years back and she's been living in solitude, angry, nursing her pain with Jack Daniels. She is now the guardian of Salim and his mother as she's the only living relative. The story is somewhat contrived, Lisa, in her anger and solitude, unable to have children, is cold and distant. She sets harsh rules for the gentle Salim and expects a distraught child who walked out of the bathroom to find a scene reminiscent of the shootout at the OK Coral on his living room floor. With time and understand Lisa melts and falls in love with Salim, "Je t'aime" she says to Salim as she tells him he's the son she never had. The shadowy Mr. Monsour makes an appearance offering to take care or help out with the family by contacting the social worker, Jalil, who has a crush on Lisa. This is incredibly strange when you consider that Monsour gave Ney the address of Salim's father to exact his revenge and provided the firearms with which to carry out his plan. Eventually another relative surfaces and Lisa must give up Salim and his mother's still silent body in a painful agony of returning to solitude. She says that there was a time before Salim and then there's the time after Salim. What will become of her is uncertain, but she chooses to go home for a bit to deal with her "phantoms" and dysfunctional family back in San Francisco.
These themes aren't new, the dynamics of the Moroccon social system and how this relative is able to trum Lisa, as not true family and only the wife of a deceased relative, is intersting. What really gets you is the poetry. Between the Vignettes are poems, illuminating, foreboding, somewhat beautifully lyrical and foreshadowing of events to come. Lisa, on a trip to the beach meets a homeless woman, an old begger asking for change. She sits and like a sage from the desert gives her a bit of wisdom about solitude loosely put: some run from solitude because they aren't comfortable with it, some run to solitdue because they can't live without it. Lisa's nature is of the first variety, the old woman on the other hand is the latter. As she lives, Lisa offers her money, and she refuses, saying next time.
Vignette number three, once again, a moment is illuminated at the beginning, you see an old man in prison through the 1st 2 Vignetts, Smail, an old con, a sage in his own right who tells a younger cell mate "we are not friends, we are both her in this situation and have to rely on each other, when we get out we might be friends." The story of Smail starts with him at the slain man's apartment trying to procure a gun. He leaves and passes a young man in the hallway on the way to the elevator, Ney, the connections are now complete. Smail's story, and at this point, the whole montage, seems very much like Ameros Peros, there's the old guy that has debts to settle and a self righteousness which comes off as compelling. Smail is in a small bungalo by the beach, he funds his life with a small treasure that he stashed before going to prison for 15 years because one of his partners sold him out. We never learn the nature of the crime but you assume some kind of heist. The details of his movements read more like those of Redford in SpyGame than an Freeman in Shawshank. He acquires a fake passport, hooks up with his only dear friend left, Omar. He says goodbye to his mother, who he said, in his prison monologues, is the only one who will wait for me. His contention is that wives and children will abandon you, but the love of the mother will keep you safe. This very much parallel's Ney's mother who says "mothers hold the keys to Heaven's Doors" and that "children must obey and respect their mothers for they have the power to curse their children" in the sense of 'i brought you into this world I can take you out.'
Smail is late on the scene, his mother is dying in the hospital and he eventually burries her. With that detail of his life settled he sees the woman he lost when he went to prison, Omar's sister, a quiet and painful conversation, and also meets a sage at the beach, an old drunk who imparts similar knowledge about solitude and "being" in that Schoppenhauerian sense of being. The plot pushes forward and you soon learn that the partner who screwed Smail is Monsour and that he's going to exact his revenge before he leaves to Bangkok, before he ties up all the loose ends and settles his score. The killing field is repeated ominously through the film and between Vignettes by the sound of a gun going off and a shot of a field of dry and pressed flat grass with trees on the right side of the screen. The climax happens here and so the film ends with a long shot of Smail driving away in Monsour's BMW, his hand fondling the air outside the window. Everything is tied up, nice and neat, the curse comes true, Ney perishes, Salim melts Lisa's heart and Smail exacts revenge.
Ok, 20 minutes till I know I'm Not Alone, Michael Franti's Documentary shot in Palestine, a man, a camera and a guitar. I'm hoping that its not over the top in its one love message, I'm not sure I can handle that right now, but it might be a nice parallel to the visceral The Blood Of My Brother. Both will have reviews soon. Look for a review of Bled Number One an Algerian film that I saw on Sunday night.
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