Inguélézi (2004) Reviews

• A widow, a refugee, and how she will help him

  tomatecerise752004-09-10

  Geneviève has just lost her husband. As she drives back from the burial, she stops to watch an accident. A Kurdish refugee who was in the crashed truck hides himself in her car trunk. When she discovers him, she gives him food and shelter. He doesn't speak any language she can understand, and keeps asking "Inguélézi". Inguélézi is England, the place he tries to go. When she understand he asks her to get him there, she refuses... but step by step, she will do it. It is a strange, courageous movie, about two persons who had no reason to meet, who can't understand each other but who share one thing: they feel apart. No one can understand the depth of her sorrow, he also lost someone in the truck crash and lost his country, his identity. Dupeyron doesn't need words to make us understand the sorrow of Geneviève, then the way she begins to feel responsible for Kader, Kader's panic, the way he tries to get what he wants and begins to trust Geneviève. A movie few people saw... it only showed in a place in Paris, then a few through France, and maybe in some festivals. It was a financial choice, anyway it's not the kind of film which gets to the top of the box office, but I really wish more people see it.

• Life upside down

  bob9982006-11-02

  I too would like more people to see this wonderful film. François Dupeyron is a new director for me (I haven't yet been able to see La Chambre des officiers, which everyone liked so much) and I found Inguélézi to be sad and gripping for most of its running time. What Geneviève is going through is well described: loss, panic, a desperate wish to restore some of the certainties of life, it's all here. Eric Caravaca, whose fifth film with Dupeyron this is, is very good as Kader, a part he probably learned phonetically. This man has to deal with grief just as much as the woman does; there's a wonderful scene where he makes a ceremonial marking on both their foreheads with earth, a way to pass through the sorrow. The London scenes are not as good, there is a feeling of impatience with the director to hurry up and finish the film.