Barakat!

I really enjoyed watching this movie, it has a slow pace where the director films intensively the expression of the characters making you feel that you can read their minds. The landscape and characters are both splendid, "majestueux" (which I would translate as "elegant with a touch of grace" in English). It was also a nice insight of the problems in Algeria, many still present from the cicatrice of the French colonisation. As a French, I was really interested to have the view from their part. As many times the History we learn at school does not deserve the uppercase 'H' because it is often biased. * warning, occidental point of view here: * And most of all, this film present the fight of women in a country where their place is not comparable to the men's one.

I really enjoyed the film where it exposes the reality of the 2 women, their search and the conflict and friendship between them!

I found it interesting when the older one talk about her past experince of Algerian libération war!!

We need more of these films who show people reality.

To understand the context in which Djamila Sahraoui's "Barakat!" (sometimes called "Enough" in English) takes place, you have to remember Algeria's history. A colony of France for over a century, it waged an eight-year war for independence - during which France tortured Algerian prisoners - before finally winning sovereignty. The party that rose to power after Algeria won independence was in power for the next thirty years. When a different party won the 1991 elections, the government simply cancelled the election results, causing a civil war.

So that's the context of this movie, wherein a doctor comes home to find her husband missing. She gets no help from the authorities, so she and a friend go and search for him. I don't know if I would call it a masterpiece, but I liked the focus on the relationship between these women (and I assume that Algeria has historically been a patriarchal society).

Worth seeing.