The Arab

Malek Bensmaïl

Fri 24 Apr 26 - Thu 30 Apr 26

drama

24 Apr

20:30

Brugge

Cinema Lumière

Tickets
27 Apr

17:15

Brugge

Cinema Lumière

Tickets
29 Apr

20:15

Turnhout

UGC

Tickets
30 Apr

17:30

Turnhout

UGC

Tickets

Traumas from the past collide with a civil war in the present in this postcolonial version of the legendary tale by Camus.

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Kamel is a journalist during the Algerian civil war in the nineteen nineties. In a bar he meets Haroun, a retired civil servant who tells him the story of his brother Moussa. Moussa is the person who was killed by Meursault, an event the French author Camus writes about in his book “L’étranger”. Haroun starts talking about his youth and about his mother’s grief for the loss of his brother.

This debut film has a classic construction, in which the broad historical context and emotional intimacy flow perfectly into one another. By alternating colour with black and white, widescreen with square aspect ratios, the director provides the necessary dynamic. The film is based on the book “Meursault, contre-enquête" by the Algerian writer Kamel Daoud, giving a name to the Arab from the novel “L’Étranger” by Albert Camus. Just like the novel, this film is a modest but powerful analysis of the lasting scars of colonialism.