La source des femmes(2011)
Director: Radu Mihaileanu
Country: Belgium
Runtime: 1 hour, 59 minutes
Romanian-born filmmaker Radu Mihaileanu offers up another certifiably crowd-pleasing slice of world cinema in The Source (La Source des Femmes), a modern-day fable exploring female empowerment in the Arab world. Never one for subtlety, the writer-director tosses everything he can into this two-hour-plus humanist couscous, stirring in a mix of songs, sentiments and socio-religious questions set beneath breathtaking North African landscapes, and carried by a strong central performance from actress Leila Bekhti. Like his previous films, The Source boasts an Arthouse for Beginners appeal that could reach broad audiences beyond Europe. Beautifully photographed amongst the harsh light of the dry, desert landscapes, The Source frequently feels like a musical and the women constantly burst into song as a way of expressing their feelings and grievances.
Set in a mountain village in an unnamed country (most likely Morocco; the Arab dialect spoken is Moroccan), the film tells the story of a group of village women who, fed up with the unwillingness of the men to help them with the straining task of fetching water from a mountaintop source each day, decide to organize a 'love strike': no more sex until the men either help with the water haul or arrange for running water to come to the village. At the forefront of this 'revolution' is Leila, wife of the village's school teacher Sami. An outsider in the village (she was not born there), and married to a progressive husband, Leila urges the women to fight for a better life. Not all the women want to go against tradition, and it earns her the scorn of her mother-in-law, so it is only with help from the well-respected widow Mother Rifle that Leila manages to organize the strike. As if the opposition of both the men and the more conservative women is not enough, things are complicated by a journalist coming to the village, who turns out to be a former sweetheart of Leila before she was married off to Sami. This puts her at risk of losing one of her strongest allies, her husband.
Country: Belgium
Runtime: 1 hour, 59 minutes
Romanian-born filmmaker Radu Mihaileanu offers up another certifiably crowd-pleasing slice of world cinema in The Source (La Source des Femmes), a modern-day fable exploring female empowerment in the Arab world. Never one for subtlety, the writer-director tosses everything he can into this two-hour-plus humanist couscous, stirring in a mix of songs, sentiments and socio-religious questions set beneath breathtaking North African landscapes, and carried by a strong central performance from actress Leila Bekhti. Like his previous films, The Source boasts an Arthouse for Beginners appeal that could reach broad audiences beyond Europe. Beautifully photographed amongst the harsh light of the dry, desert landscapes, The Source frequently feels like a musical and the women constantly burst into song as a way of expressing their feelings and grievances.
Set in a mountain village in an unnamed country (most likely Morocco; the Arab dialect spoken is Moroccan), the film tells the story of a group of village women who, fed up with the unwillingness of the men to help them with the straining task of fetching water from a mountaintop source each day, decide to organize a 'love strike': no more sex until the men either help with the water haul or arrange for running water to come to the village. At the forefront of this 'revolution' is Leila, wife of the village's school teacher Sami. An outsider in the village (she was not born there), and married to a progressive husband, Leila urges the women to fight for a better life. Not all the women want to go against tradition, and it earns her the scorn of her mother-in-law, so it is only with help from the well-respected widow Mother Rifle that Leila manages to organize the strike. As if the opposition of both the men and the more conservative women is not enough, things are complicated by a journalist coming to the village, who turns out to be a former sweetheart of Leila before she was married off to Sami. This puts her at risk of losing one of her strongest allies, her husband.
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