Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

L’armée du salut by Abdellah Taïa

2014; American Association of Teachers of French; Volume: 88; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/tfr.2014.0021

2329-7131

Walter S. Temple,

African history and culture studies

Reviews 209 d’universités, de chercheurs, d’étudiants mais aussi d’amateurs curieux. Mais attention: il ne s’agit pas d’une encyclopédie. Cette anthologie exige une lecture attentive et posée (pas forcément chronologique) et se lit comme un roman, comme une histoire. Gros bémol: la malencontreuse coquille qui place les frères Lumière en 1996 (30). Il faut espérer qu’elle n’en cache pas d’autres moins facilement décelables. Ce serait dommage pour un ouvrage d’une telle envergure. Hamilton College (NY) Martine Guyot-Bender Taïa, Abdellah, réal. L’armée du salut. Int. Saïd Mrini, Karim Ait M’Hand, Amine Ennaji. Pierre, 2014. Taïa’s debut film is a testament to the writer-filmmaker’s ability to quietly seduce his audience in a way that is neither forceful nor predictable. The film is an adaptation of the 2006 novel that bears the same title, although viewers will encounter several striking differences between the literary and cinematic versions. The film chronicles the sexual awakening of Abdellah, a Moroccan adolescent who eventually emigrates to Europe, where he can embrace his homosexuality without renouncing his Muslim roots. Those unfamiliar with Taïa’s œuvre may not initially respond to the writer’s intimate yet complicated relationship with his native Morocco as articulated in his first book, Mon Maroc (2000) as well as several subsequent essays that frame the current storyline. The motif of silence that lingers throughout the film gives way to the tropes of fear and desire as evidenced through much of the dialogue. The cinematography is stunningly beautiful, an obvious result of the filmmaker’s collaboration with award-winning cinematographer Agnès Godard. The opening shots of the film reveal Taïa’s Morocco, a country that is both original and raw. The film’s overarching themes—sexuality, coming-of-age, sexual tourism—are for the most part free of politically-charged discourse,although the inherent problematics of the main character’s différence are linked to each of these topoi in a subtle yet direct manner. Perhaps in an ironic way, the thematics of sexuality and erotic engagement are less graphic than in the novel, and explicit sexual encounters are largely played out in the imagination of the filmgoer. Audiences will, however, likely react quite differently to dramatic and interwoven moments of domestic abuse perpetrated by the father against the mother, and the incestuous desire Abdellah harbors for his older brother, Slimane. Recalling the poetic lyricism characteristic of the novel, the ever-changing gaze of the camera’s eye facilitates an active engagement with the storyline, which in turn enables us to more easily and effortlessly peel back the various layers of Abdellah’s imaginary as such scenes fade out and return with understated intensity. In what is arguably the most pronounced difference between the film and the novel, the onscreen Abdellah is noticeably more severe than the narrator of the book. In one of the more cogent scenes,Abdellah confronts his Swiss lover, Jean—a moment during which the brutality of immigration and selfish excess come to the fore.While his character is less endearing in this regard, such behavior reflects a shift in the power dynamics of Arab-European relations—here in the context of a homosexual and transnational love affair.Although filmic adaptations of literary works quite often result in a compromise between the elasticity of literature and the rigidity of the camera’s lens, L’armée du salut demonstrates that the subjective tonality of the novel translates into a powerful, convincing, and thought-provoking piece of cinema. Even though the film’s sudden ending elucidates Taïa’s creative vision, many questions remain unanswered, inciting reflection. University of Miami Walter Shawn Temple Wall-Romana, Christophe. Jean Epstein: Corporeal Cinema and Film Philosophy. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2013. ISBN 978-0-7190-8623-6. Pp. 224. $95. Foundational to avant-garde interwar film culture and to philosophical approaches to film after World War II were the writings of Jean Epstein (1897–1953), the noted proponent of photogénie for whom the close-up and altered motion (reverse, fast, slow) could reinvigorate a...