Soula tells the tale of its eponymous heroine, a young woman with a child born out of wedlock, desperately trying to keep it together in spite of the fact she is a social outcast. Soula is a free spirit, who enjoys the things young women all over the world enjoy: drinking, smoking, hanging out, having fun. But in the society she inhabits, this isn’t encouraged. The film is made up of various chapters set over the course of around 12 hours, each time stamped, as we follow the course of a tragic day. Soula flees from her home, is betrayed by her friend, raped, picked up by her crazy cousin, who sets out to drive her 300kms with his newly arrived friend from France to a party town on the coast. In the midst of all this she has to try to ensure her baby daughter is safe. The film and Soula’s crazy night ends in predictable tragedy. The film does a vigorous job of representing the way in which women are maltreated in Algeria, and the hairline fractures that exist in a society seeking to balance western liberalism with the perceived social conditioning of religion.
No comments:
Post a Comment