Art of the Real previews; Jarmusch retrospective, FSLC

[Chris Knipp]

NARIMANE MARI: BLOODY BEANS (2013)




Algerian kids filmed in a poetic reconsideration of poverty and the Algerian war

"A group of Algerian children frolic on the beach, but their roughhousing soon turns into a kind of reenactment of the Algerian War of Independence that plays out as equal parts Lord of the Flies and Les Carabiniers." This is the Lincoln Center Art of the Real series blurb in brief, but if Jay Weissberg's detailed description in Variety is correct, the film has a "performance piece feel" throughout, but is not conceived as a "reenactment" that develops out of "roughhousing." Instead, the bunch of skinny boys (and a few plumper girls) swim in the Mediterranean all day, but when they talk, it vaguely emerges that this is taking place during the time of the Algerian war and is not just a reenactment of it, however symbolic and performance-piece-ish the following action is. This includes a trip to the pig-faced colonial man's house, then a night when the boys paint their bodies and don makes and go through a Christian cemetery to the caserne where they "kidnap" a French guard (played by an actor with an Arab name, though, Samy Bouhouche), dance around with balloons in nice light with nice music, and take him back to the beach, where they make friends with him and dawn breaks. The final sequence shows the boys and girls floating in the calm water and reciting the lines of an Antonin Artaud poem that ends with the question, "Is being better than obeying?" To which the answer is yes.

This is a little film where you have to go with the flow, and the nighttime sequence is a lot more beautiful than anything else, particularly the dancing around with balloons and mock stabbings with paper knives, in which the boys show great spirit and invention and move with balletic grace.

Comparisons with The Lord of the Flies have been made in references to this film, and the boys have been referred to as "feral," but these are misleading exaggerations. Mari doesn't develop a narrative situation complex enough to suggest any alteration in the boys or their having a "society" other than their being pals from poor families who swim at the same beach. Though their families aren't seen, when they complain all the time about eating a diet consisting mainly of beans and sleeping all in one room "like hens," they're saying they have (poor) families they live with normally.

Importantly, the boys are very lively, and their interactions in the water and on the beach and thereafter are very playful, affectionate, and free, and this is the heart of the film's energy and life. Each "child" (as they're called in the credits) has a real complete name but also a nickname, like "Bone Marrow." One of them sings songs, at first an Egyptian love song, later Algerian songs. One is exceptionally tall and scrawny. But they are nearly all skinny, and they are unfortunately not well differentiated either as characters or as physical types as are the characters in William Golding's The Lord of the Rings, and this is a weakness: see them howeer simply as a homogenous group of kids who become an impromptu performance troupe.

I can't improve on Weissberg's concluding lines ending a fine detailed description of Bloody Beans, in which he notes that "intense workshoppping" was importanat in bringing out the best "in the non-pro tyke actors." Indeed as he writes, their "simmering, almost balletic energy drives the rhythms of the film as much as the accomplished editing"; also as he writes, dp Nasser Madjkane's "acive camera practically dances alongside the children" in long takes that hold onto the mood. The music and "curious soundscapes" are extremely important in what becomes an "overall dreamlike picture." Special credit goes to the memorable and original music by Zombie Zombie, Cosmic Neman, and Etienne Jeman; it takes over during the final credits and even after the final credits for a good length of time, and anyone watching the film would be a fool to leave before the last note his sounded. The music is a huge element here but also a thoroughly integral one.

Weissberg notes with disapproval that this film has been "mislabeled a documentary by certain festivals" -- particularly Copenhagen's CPH:DOX, where it won the Best Doc prize. Festivals indeed may need to review their categories, and keep the hybrid categories separate from more informational "documentary" programs in giving out awards. As thisdescription should show, Bloody Beans is an imaginative romp with strong political-historical overtomes using non-actors, and has nothing of he observational recoding documentary about it -- unlike, for example, Paulo Rocha's 1966 Change of LIfe,, also in the Art of the Real series, which makes extensive use of actual milieux of the non-actors incorporated into its story, though it also is not a pure documentary but a fanciful narrative using non-actors, somewhat as in Italian Neorealist films. But the definition of Art of the Real makes clear that it's interested in artful, imaginative boundary-crossers, and Bloody Beans is a perfect example.

Bloody Beans/Loubia hamra ("Red Beans"), 77 mins., was first shown at Marseille, then CPH: DOX and Turin. It was screened for this review as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center's 2014 Art of the Real series, in which it shows Saturday, April 12, 2014 at 9:30pm and Sunday, April 13 at 4:30pm at Lincoln Center. Filmmaker Narimane Mari in person for Q&A at both screenings.