VILLA JASMIN

France, 2008, 95 minutes, Colour.
Arnaud Giovaninetti, Clement Sibony, Judith Davis, Elsa Mollien.
Directed by Ferid Boughedir.

It will probably depend on your mood whether you are beguiled into being drawn into this film or you feel it too low-key and find yourself observing rather than empathising. This review is based on a beguiling experience.

Ferid Boughedir displays fine craft and a sensitivity which is both light and tender as he portrays deeply felt relationships, especially between husbands and wives. He also displays an ease in moving between one era and another and unobtrusively bringing characters from each period together to converse and help each to understand the other, particularly son and his dead father.

The setting is Tunisia in the 1970s when a young man returns to his country with his pregnant wife after being away for 20 years. He is on a quest to re-discover his father, creating a legend about him as a true patriot and a resistance hero in France during World War II. He finds his mother's and father's grave and this initiates flashbacks and a present quest to meet people who knew his father.

The family is Jewish so there is a great deal of Jewish background as well as Nazi persecution and the camps.

The young man's father was a charmer, directing theatre, a journalist and a patriotic socialist who wanted French cultural values in an independent Tunisia. He marries, has a daughter, is arrested and tortured for his outspoken views and his criticism of the representatives of Vichy France at the outbreak of war. He suffers for his beliefs but is reunited with his wife at the end of the war. The son, who is on his quest, is born after the war.

A scene showing the little boy petulant at his father's death indicates that the boy did not really know his father and suffers from regrets.

This is not an impassioned patriotic story though the passion is implicit. Rather, it takes the audience on a journey into the lives of people and a country, loves, suffering and lost opportunties.

1.A personal story? A national story? Tunisian history?

2.The Tunisian setting: the 1930s, World War Two period, the Vichy representatives, post-war Tunisia, the passing of twenty years? The beauty of the city, the old theatre, offices, homes, hospitals, hotels? An authentic feel?

3.The period, the locations, costumes and décor, the score, the songs?

4.The past and the present? The flashbacks, the uniting of the flashbacks with the present? The presence of characters in both past and present? The dialogue between the father and son? Insights for each character, the effect on the son?

5.Serge and his quest? The ship at the opening and closing? His pregnant wife, the twenty years since he had been in Tunisia? Going to the hotel, retracing steps, going to the old theatre, the interiors, finding the associates? The meeting with Rachel? Going to the cemetery, the boy, pointing out his parents’ grave? The legends about his father? The truth about his father? His father as real and authentic?

6.The Jewish background, devout Jews in Tunisia, practice, rituals? The class distinction amongst the groups? Its effect? The war, the arrests, Serge and his going to the concentration camp? The background of the family coming from Italy, Livorno, the grandmother and her aristocratic notions?

7.Serge’s memory, of him as a boy, his father’s dying, his petulance about his gift and birthday, his mother’s death soon after? His sister? Leaving Tunisia?

8.The scene at the cemetery, the boy, his revealing the headstone? The effect on Serge?

9.His father, in the theatre, the man singing, the girls in the chorus, Odette coming to visit, his attraction, talking with her, the bond, the marriage? Her pregnancy and the birth of the daughter? Her love for her husband? Serge as a writer, popular? His collaboration with Raul? As a socialist, his concerns, the demonstrations, his reputation?

10.His love for France, French culture in Tunisia? Yet wanting independence? The Vichy representative and the fascist government? The anti-Semitic tone? Germany and Vichy France, collaborating for independent Tunisia? The French occupation, its effect? Serge and his insulting the representative? His arrest, the torture? His soliloquy on being in the concentration camp? Glimpsed in the newsreel, in Paris, his return, his story about the Resistance?

11.Odette, the interrogation, the insults?

12.Serge’s return, Odette and the family, the family at the beach, their criticisms of her? Seeing the newsreel? Her joy, Claudine and her fear? Rachel’s arrival, her help, a nanny for the children?

13.Henri, his father’s illness, the deaths, going to boarding school?

14.Serge and his father, the intermingling of past and present, their dialogue, at the office, the discussions about the concentration camp, the finale, discussions about whether the father was a Resistance hero or not? The effect on Serge?

15.The background of the grandmother, her hostility towards Odette, Odette winning her over? Breaking through the prejudices, her death?

16.Serge and the gift from Rachel, the completion of his search for the past, his memories? Leaving?