French film 'Sisters' blurs line between art and reality | Movie Review
In present-day Paris, three generations of French-Algerian women live, work, love, and struggle with the traumas of their complicated past. Yamina Benguigui’s drama “Sisters” (2020) tells this circuitous and dazzling story, disintegrating the conceptual barriers between art and real life.
Two-time Oscar nominee Isabelle Adjani headlines this provocative film, playing Zorah, the eldest sister and a playwright. We see her walking melancholically through the streets of Paris, stopping at cafés for heady discussions, and busily directing actors at a local theater. Her new play is an autobiographical dramatization of her and her sisters’ childhood, featuring her own daughter (Hafsia Herzi) in the role of her mother.
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The film hinges on Zorah’s memories and her attempts to come to terms with identity, trauma, and the need to express one’s truth. In a series of interwoven flashbacks, we learn that Zorah’s parents were freedom fighters during the Algerian War of Independence. Her mother, Leila, (also Herzi) was captured and abused by French soldiers and was rescued by Hassan (Rachid Djaidani).
After the war, Leila and Hassan settled in mainland France, struggling to maintain their Algerian heritage and pass it on to their daughters. Hassan, though, soon turned his anger towards French imperialism into violence towards his wife and daughters. Leila divorced him. But Hassan, taking advantage of Algerian family law, kidnapped their youngest child and only son Rheda and relocated to Algeria.
In the present, the older Leila (Fattouma Bouamari) still hopes to be reunited with her son, even after 30 years’ separation.
The family has been trying to move on. Middle sister Djamila (Rachida Brakni) is a local politician, while youngest sister Norah (Maïwenn) struggles to hold a job longer than 28 days. Anger and pain erupt when Zorah’s mother and sisters learn she is directing a play based on their lives.
But the family also learns that the past is never fully resolved.
Soon after the truth of Zorah’s play comes out, the sisters learn their father, still living in Algeria, has had a heart attack. Leila commands her daughters to go and see him – and to find out where Rheda is.
All three sisters struggle with their conflicted feelings about their father and their heritage. They meet their cousin who regards them as outsiders, underscoring the collective feeling of not belonging, either in France or Algeria.
Having tea with their cousin on a rooftop in Algiers, the sisters think about their lives and how they have been affected by their past and identity, the many contradictions they experience. At this point, Zorah tells her reason for writing her play, saying that she wants to “challenge everything in the history books that in no way corresponds to the flesh of reality.”
“Sisters” offers a thoughtful meditation on gender, art, family, history, identity, and the complicated responses societies make to the legacies of colonialism. Throughout, one gets the sense that, like Zorah’s play, the barrier between drama and documentary has been erased, and that we the audience are invited to define what that means.
Timothy Welch is a master’s candidate in the Literature, Media, and Culture program at Florida State University, where he is also an instructor in the College Composition Program.
If you go (virtually)
What: “Sisters” at the Tallahassee Film Society’s Virtual Cinema, opening Friday, Nov. 5
When: Ongoing; 50% of the proceeds go directly to support the Film Society
Cost: $10 for 3-day rental
Visit: https://www.tallahasseefilms.com/
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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: French film 'Sisters' blurs line between art and reality
