Cinema
Les Folles Années du twist
Mahmoud Zemmouri · 1983
Synopsis
Boufarik, in the early sixties. Boualem and Salah are twenty, wear checked shirts and dark glasses, and care about the twist, girls and easy money rather than what is going on around them. They live in a housing estate shared between pieds-noirs and Algerians and manage to show no sign of commitment to either side. A few firecrackers are enough to empty a market, and what is left on the stalls is theirs. But independence is approaching.
Context
A Franco-Algerian co-production, ninety-six minutes in colour, with music by Richard Anthony and photography by Smaïl Lakhdar-Hamina; Richard Bohringer and Jacques Villeret have small roles in it. An opening title card states the subject: it is not the war but the way people survive it, through heroism, cowardice, opportunism or indifference. Its author was fifteen at the time when the action is set. Olivier Assayas praised in it the talent of the line and a manner close to the comic strip.
Who it is for
One hour thirty-six, subtitled, frankly comic. It helps to know that the film approaches the war through two boys who refuse to choose a side, which was new in 1983.
Prizes and reception
Presented at Venice and Nantes in 1983, gold medal at Chamrousse the following year. France only saw it in February 1986, and it has circulated at festivals since.