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A scene from writer-director Karin Albou's The Wedding Song.

A View of One’s Own

By John Esther

Continuing to explore sexuality and relationships against a community backdrop, Karin Albou’s The Wedding Song (Le Chant des Mariées) breaks barriers.

The follow up to her excellent feature debut, Little Jerusalem (La Petite Jerusalem), director-writer-actor Albou moves her latest film from a micro-community of contemporary Paris to Tunis, Tunisia, 1942, where poor Jews and Arabs live together with ease until a schism called Nazism appears.

Growing up in the same house, Nour (Olympe Borval) and Myriam (Lizzie Brocheré) have been lifelong friends. Nour is a sheltered, uneducated Muslim and Myriam is a rebellious, freethinking Jew. The Jewish-Arab issue is never a question until Nazis begin to occupy Tunisia and “racial laws” are implemented.

Miriam is about to marry her cousin, Khaled (Najib Oudghin), a loafer and, eventually, a collaborator. Meanwhile, Myriam’s mother, Tita (Albou), is arranging her daughter to marry Raoul (Simon Abkarian), a rich Jewish doctor who can well afford the Jewish tax imposed on the occupiers. Raoul, too, collaborates with the occupiers.

Exploring multiple dualities -- culture-faith; Jew-Arab; femininity-masculinity; tradition-modernism; etc. -- against an original World War II backdrop, The Wedding Song proves Albou one of the most original voices of recent years.

The daughter of a French mother and Algerian father, Albou grew up in France singing and dancing before studying theater and literature. Eventually she enrolled in film school to study screenwriting. After school she made her first short film, Chutl, which won the Best First Movie Cinecinema Award. Her second short, Aid el-Kebir, was a love story set in Algeria.

In addition to international acclaim and critic praise, Albou’s first feature, Little Jerusalem, won the Best Screenplay prize at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival (Critic’s Week section) and received two nominations: Best First Work and Most Promising Actress to the film’s lead, Fanny Valette, at the 2006 César Awards (France’s Oscars).

However, despite the success of La Petite Jerusalem and the significant strength of The Wedding Song, the latter has been relegated to Jewish film festivals. Is it a conspiracy?

We spoke to Albou about her work.

JEsther Entertainment: Why did you want to make this film?
Karin Albou: My first idea was to portray a sisterly friendship between two girls and to show how they don’t see their Jewish and Muslim identities as an issue. They are aware they are a little different, but suddenly, as war disrupts their lives, they find themselves on opposite sides. But, as war drives them apart, they unite as women. Both of them are oriental -- even if one is Jewish and the other Muslim -- and have grown up in a patriarchal society. So I mainly wanted to talk about the personal cost of war. Then the historical frame came to me after I discovered of Nazis occupied Tunisia for six months: Except for historians, nobody knew about it and there was no movie dealing with that period of time.

JE: I understand the story was also inspired by your paternal grandmother, Germaine Esther? How historical/biographical is it?
KA: During my twenties I was living at my grandmother’s. I found a box a letters from Germany written by my grandfather. Because he was from Algeria, I didn’t know he went to Germany during WWII. I thought French colonies had been spared from the war. Then she explained that Jews in Algeria were stripped off their French citizenships during the Vichy French government and forbidden to work in many sectors. She couldn’t work because she was Jewish while my grandfather was a POW in Germany. It was only when I was editing the movie I understood that Tita (a nickname for Esther) is a tribute to my grandma

JE: Which character do you identify with the most and why?
KA: I surely don’t identify with Tita. She is very different from me and that is why it was so exciting and challenging for me to play her. I had to search deep in myself to find what emotionally triggers her and makes her think she has the right to marry her daughter against her will. Personally, I would never do that to my daughter. I feel close to Nour and Myriam because both lose their purity while being thrown into the violence of the world. That is why I chose to set the film during their weddings, which is a physical and symbolic loss of childhood. In a way the film is an allegory of the transition from childhood to adulthood, both politically and sexually.

JE: Could you discuss a few of the primary casting obstacles?
KA: The main obstacle was to find actresses who would appear naked. In Tunisia it was impossible. That is why I decided to play Tita; I don’t live there anymore so I don’t mind. That is also why it took me a few months to find Nour -- an actress who looks young, uneducated, who would kiss a boy and who would get naked.

JE: What are the particular challenges making a film in Tunisia, especially as a Jew or as a woman?
KA: The challenge was to make this particular movie in Tunisia – the fact that a woman allows herself to shoot sex scenes, including explicit nudity and, above all, close-ups of her crotch. Some people perceived it as a provocation, or even obscenity, because Tunisian (both Muslim and Jewish) culture is very modest. One doesn’t talk about sexuality. What was more challenging is what I show about Muslim and Jewish relationships -- a deep love and understanding as well as a deep distance and mistrust. This loving relationship can also become very violent.

JE: What are your political intentions with The Wedding Song?
KA: At first I didn’t want to make a political movie. That is why I chose to portray this friendship story during WWII and not nowadays where people are obsessed with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and see everything though this reducing lense. I didn’t want the audience to say who is right and who is wrong, but to feel how two girls find themselves on opposite sides. Besides, I think we – in France and Israel, not in the United States -- are oversaturated with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on TV and that maybe the task of cinema is to show something else than what we see on TV. Of course now, when I step back, I see that my movie is actually also political and can address contemporary issues. The main message is that if it was possible to love one another in the most tragic moment of history, it should be possible now. Maybe because Tunisia is a country that always tries to deny its own violence in general? I wanted to put an end to this mythology and say that, as most others countries in the world, Tunisia is not spared from violence -- political, historical and even intimate violence. For instance, I didn’t choose golden and warm colors for the set and costume designs, but cold, pale blue tints in order to break the Orientalist view of a warm and nice country because Tunisia is not only that.

JE: Your first two features address sexuality within (or against) the community? Why are you drawn to those kinds of links?
KA: I still don’t understand why I address these issues. I don’t want to answer something just to answer something and pretend that I am witty and know everything about myself. I really don’t know and I think it is part of my personal mystery that I need to confront in my work.

JE: The waxing scene of Myriam’s pubic hair has stirred quite a bit of debate. Why?
KA: I have been told that it is the first time one sees such a scene in a movie. And new things create debate. The scene has kept my film out of more than one film festival.

JE: Young women, nudity, sexual exploration (fornication; masturbation), "bikini" waxing, etc., are the kinds of themes one would think young people would like to see in a film, yet your audiences tend to be older. What do you think is happening?
KA: When young people, by chance or because they follow their parents, see my movies they usually like it. They come to talk with me after the Q&A, to tell me they feel very close to the characters. They don’t really have the opportunity to see these kinds of movies -- not only mine, all art movies -- except by chance. They wouldn’t go on their initiative, because apparently, they are not attracted to movies that deal with issues they face everyday. They see cinema as an entertainment. The main problem for the distribution of art movies is that it is difficult to grow a young audience.

JE: Although there is a deconstruction of the male gaze in your work, you have plenty of female nudity in both films. There is little male nudity.
KA: Well, maybe in my next movie there will be a waxing scene of a man’s balls. [Laughs]. Seriously, I think the answer is in your question: Maybe my task as a filmmaker is to talk about women as a woman because throughout the history of art and cinema, femininity has always been seen and described by male gaze. It is quite new that women have the chance to talk about themselves. But I am not as woman-centered as you suggest. In La petite Jerusalem I showed both men and women naked. In The Wedding Song the problem was that Simon Abkarian didn’t want to be naked in the movie. But while I was shooting the honeymoon scene, I realized it is better for the movie because it is more humiliating for Myriam to show that she is naked and Raoul is not. Raoul appears to be more macho and not powerless in the face of her. In the honeymoon scene between Nour and Khaled they are both naked, which is another detail that shows the modernity of Khaled. And the nudity is meaningful in that scene because they talk about the Koran. They are equal on a religious level rather than on the nudity level. In that scene male nudity is very important and I would have been frustrated and limited if Najib had not accepted to be naked. [Laughs]

JE: Without sounding too sycophantic I should say the scene where Myriam hides under her mother's legs when Khaled escorts the Nazis to her house is brilliant. Many narratives are simultaneously working on many levels. Can you tell us how you conceived that scene?
KA: Thank you, John. I am very happy you mention that scene. You are the second journalist who stresses its importance. During the editing I was about to cut it because some people didn’t like it. I didn’t know how to explain why it was so meaningful. They finally trusted me and I kept it. I now realize it is a kind of rebirth for Myriam in a world where she is alone without Nour and her mother. So when she hides between her mother's legs, she is also symbolically in her womb. And she sees Khaled and the real terror of the situation like an unborn baby. Another level is that Tita hides her with her sexuality and maybe protects her by attempting to be attractive to the soldiers – as a distraction. On another level Tita is no longer a character; she is just legs and a body. She disappears from the narrative and allows Myriam to be woman, an active character.

JE: It is also the point where Myriam understands the real horror of the situation.
KA: Correct. Tita shows her daughter that her mother is not just being mean by making her marry Raoul.

JE: While the characters have flaws, if there is one glaring problem with The Wedding Song, it is that the Jewish characters are more sympathetic than their Arab counterparts (i.e. Myriam vs. Nour; Raoul vs. Khaled; Tita vs. Nour's father).
KA: To feel sympathy and antipathy for a character is very subjective. Personally I think Nour’s father is nicer and wiser than Tita. Nour is as nice as Myriam. Don’t forget she saves Myriam in the hammam (women’s bathhouse), which is very brave. And don’t forget they are both culturally Arab and they speak Arabic. Khaled and Raoul are both ambivalent characters and they have an opposite narrative arc because they are seen through the girls’ eyes. Khaled seems more sympathetic at first than Raoul because he symbolizes a “Prince Charming” before that changes. Khaled is macho but also very modern and liberal with Nour because he gives her books to read, he doesn’t drop her when she is not a virgin anymore and takes responsibility. He allows her to be free at the end when he fakes her loss of virginity with the bloodstained sheet. What he does politically is terrible, but I give him psychological motivations -- he is jealous, he doesn’t have work -- to let the audience feel compassion for him or not. Usually Arab people in the audience think that Khaled corresponds with a certain sociologic reality. That kind of machismo he shows still exists today in most Arab countries, because they are non democratic. It is quite subversive to write a character like Khaled in France and I like it. It's a bit different now, but the problem in many French movies with Arab characters is their lack of reality and credibility because they don’t have any flaws and ambivalence. They have to be "perfect Arabs.” It is the same problem for all minorities. It is an ideological stance because France was a former colonialist country. But to me it is a mistake that is rooted in the same symptoms of racism. You deny people their reality and complexity. You demand them to be flawless because they have to be emblematic of your own non-racist opinions.

JE: Despite the success of La Petite Jerusalem at Cannes and elsewhere, plus the high quality and praise of The Wedding Song, the latter has only appeared in Jewish Film Festivals. A conspiracy?
KA: Well, I was aware of the false accusation of "The Jewish plot" but I never heard about "The Goyim plot." [Laughs]. Seriously, the main reason is because it didn’t correspond with the French period of release of the movie in December. I am very grateful Jewish film festivals like my movie. Considering others festivals, perhaps they didn’t understand the novelty of my movie? Usually most of the WWII fiction movies take place in Europe or France instead of in the former French colonies. The Wedding Song is the only film describing what happened in Tunisia and reminds us the Shoah was not only an European issue, but that the Nazis had spread it all over the world, as it happened in Tunisia and Libya.

JE: What are the particular challenges you face as "Jewish Female" filmmaker?
KA: The main challenge is that I don’t really see myself as a Jewish filmmaker. I feel myself as a filmmaker who tries to describe universal feelings in a specific cultural surrounding. My cinematographic mentor or heritage could be Martin Scorsese’s first movies, such as Mean Streets. Actually it is the fact that this movie is going to Jewish film festivals that makes me feel that, yes, maybe I am a Jewish filmmaker.

JE: Judging by the research and responses I have read your work also strikes a positive chord with non-Semitic men (i.e. gentiles). What do you think is going on there? Are Jewish/Arab women still "exotic" or representing the Other in the eyes of Occidental males?
KA: Men can answer that question. Representing "the Other" and being exotic is the same. For western audiences movies may be exotic because they are different – like the films of Satyajit Ray and Abbas Kiarostami. Maybe exoticism is the first step of cultural dialogue, or the first step of innovation. Perhaps it is as negative as it sounds. For instance, because I am French or Arab-Jew or whatever (I don’t know exactly what I am!), for me a big city like Los Angeles, or even the boonies, are very exotic because it is very far from what I know.

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