Inch'Allah Sunday

Inch'allah Dimanche
(France) An ARP Selection release of a Bandits Longs, ARP production. (International sales: Mercure Distribution, Paris.) Produced by Philippe Dupuis-Mendel. Executive producer, Bachir Derrais.
Directed, written by Yamina Benguigui.

With: Fejria Deliba, Zinedine Soualem, Marie-France Pisier, Mathilde Seigner, Rabia Mokedem, France Darry, Jalil Lespert.
(French & Arabic dialogue.)

By LISA NESSELSON

An Algerian wife joins her laborer husband in France during the '70s, but finds both him and the country to be strangers, in "Inch'Allah Sunday." This largely autobiographical first fiction outing by documaker Yamina Benguigui (1994's "Women of Islam," 1997's "Memoires d'immigres") communicates -- not always subtly -- the clash of customs and traditions between two very different cultures at a time of nascent feminism. A topnotch central perf by the attractive and convincing Fejria Deliba combines with well-observed details that bring the tricky assimilation of a generation of immigrants to life. Pic, which has already done well at fests (and is Algeria's official submission for the foreign-language film Oscar, due to the nationality of the director), opened in France in early December to mostly positive notices.

Because her husband of 10 years, Ahmed (Zinedine Soualem), has been working in a factory in chilly northern France and returns home to Algiers only for brief visits, Zouina (Deliba) barely knows him. Under a 1974 French ruling that permits North African laborers in France to be reunited with their families, however, Zouina sets sail with her three young children and her demanding shrew of a mother-in-law, Aicha (formidable Rabia Mokedem, giving one of the great Evil In-Law perfs in recent memory).

Ahmed is renting a modest brick house in France. On one side resides an elderly xenophobic couple. On the other side is a perky working divorcee, Mlle. Briat (Mathilde Seigner), who couldn't be more supportive. In addition, Zouina crosses paths with a well-off military widow (Marie-France Pisier) whose husband was killed during the Algerian War, the grocer who gives her credit and a young bus driver (Jalil Lespert).

Ahmed slaps Zouinaaround at the slightest perceived fault. Kept more or less under house arrest except to do shopping errands, Zouina braves Ahmed's wrath by sneaking out on Sundays with the kids. Earnest and didactic pic does a bang-up job of portraying Zouina's building frustration as -- stuck in an unfamiliar climate with a stranger of a spouse -- she is torn between obedience to old school Muslim patriarchy and her sense that women needn't be second class citizens in France.

Narrative is often bittersweet but never dreary. Nicely rendered period design jolts the viewer with reminders that provincial France in the mid-'70s was still closer to WWII than to the present and that today's relatively harmonious multicultural society was hard won indeed. Camera (color), Antoine Roch; editor, Nadia Ben Rachid; art director, Marc Marmier; costume designer, Malika Khelfa; sound (Dolby), Michel Vionnet, Dominique Hennequin; casting, Philippe Sol. Reviewed at St.-Andre-des-Arts theater, Paris, Dec. 13, 2001. (In Toronto Film Festival -- Planet Africa; Marrakesh Film Festival -- competing.) Running time: 97 MIN.

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