Review of "At my age I still hide to smoke" by Rayhana: THE movie not to be missed.

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At my age I still hide to smoke is Rayhana Obermeyer's first film: the adaptation of her eponymous play. It was released in theaters on April 26, 2017 and we hope to see it there for a long time. 

"In the heart of the hammam far from the accusing gaze of men, mothers, lovers, virgins or exalted Islamists, buttocks and scarves of God confront each other, challenge each other between laughter, tears and anger, Bible and Koran … before the whistle of a dagger and the silence of God. »

This is the synopsis of our huge crush, for At my age I still hide to smoke :

An adaptation:20769_635302416154988559

Rayhana Obermeyer's film is therefore the adaptation of the eponymous play, it is directed by the director and scenographer Fabian Chappuis. His play is a creation of the Maison des Métallos and was shot from 2010 to 2012.
In this tragicomedy we find 9 women of various conditions, they are interpreted by Marie Augereau, Géraldine Azouelos, Paula Brunet-Sancho, Linda Chaïb, Rébecca Finet, Catherine Giron, Taïdir Ouazine and Rayhana.

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An ode to freedom of expression.

Like a breath, the film caresses our emotions with intelligence, grace and voluptuousness.
From the beginning of the film, we are carried by the words of a woman on her desire for love and escape. What is the situation today? Do these words have any meaning? Do they have the same meaning everywhere? Is being a free woman still a sad utopia?
These are the issues of this film.
It is the current feminine conditions of Muslim women facing a rise of religious extremism that are being expressed today.

Why such a topic?

"The first Islamist rules that the FIS instituted in the cities under its control were those against women, who became enemy number 1: "Women are the root of evil, the cause of decadence in the world, a scourge to be subdued. They are the cause of unemployment, they must be veiled and sent home… ". End of coeducation in schools, in hospitals, in queues in front of bakeries as well as at bus stops… so many aberrations and violence against us. Acts of violence are then perpetrated against those who refuse to respect their rules. I realized that we women had even more to lose than men. That the fight we had been waging since independence for equal rights – a battle still far from being won – with the meteoric rise of fundamentalists, our future became obscure." – Rayhana Obermeyer

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A political film.

In addition to the major religious conflicts in this film, another hovers over: that of the borders concerning the relations between the West and the Maghreb.

"I wrote the play two years after my exile. An urgent and irresistible need to testify and shout in front of the West, deaf and blind, which played at not knowing: "Who kills whom? ". Relayed by the media, this sentence killed us with "why" while the terrorists claimed their criminal actions from the public squares of London or Paris… We invited them on television sets, we offered them visas, political asylum, money to better assassinate us. I will never forgive French politics for refusing a visa to the great of the Algerian theater, Azzedine Medjoubi, director, actor and director of the national theater, executed shortly after at the exit of the theater in Algiers, in the rue Molière… " – Rayhana Obermeyer 

No, there is no main character.

The character of Fatima, played by Hiam Abbass, is the common thread, he guides us from woman to woman, from story to story.
She carries the film with incredible strength, but is not the protagonist, she is an element among the elements. All women are important.

294544A closed session:

It is in the den of a hammam in Algiers that the epic is born. In a warm and foggy atmosphere, women of all generations, of all builds, naked or wrapped in a towel chat in Arabic. They remember, warn, debate political topics, their desires and fantasies. We listen to them with tenderness, distress and sadness. Why a hammam?

"The hammam has established itself from the philosophical and ancestral point of view as a cathartic place of exposing. In my society the hammam is one of the few places where a woman can go without reprimand. Except for the Islamists who overnight decided that the hammam was also "Hram" (illicit) because place of nudity: a woman must show her body only to her husband" – Rayhana Obermeyer

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The origin of the conflict

We needed a pretext to be in this place for so long, and this pretext is still a woman, a woman pregnant with an illegitimate baby, she is sought by her husband's brother, he wants to shoot them. In the heights of the hammam, Fatima hides and protects her.

A film full of humor.

The great Algerian singer, dancer and actress Biyouna interprets the role of Aisha, without restraint, she makes us laugh with anecdotes and lines to become cult.

Images

A refined staging.

Although it is a theater adaptation, there is no doubt that this nugget belongs to the cinematographic genre, the camera movements are light and pleasant: They make us travel by their beauty. It is also with a flight of black sails over the city that the film ends. Very symbolic images that leave us speechless.

In our country, which is the France, the fight towards parity, for us women, is certainly not over, but in front of this cinematographic nugget we are alarmed by this world that is still going so badly.

A film that gives strength in the face of so much combativeness and desire for freedom. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0XGlblvKoE 

Run to see this film as captivating as it is important!! 

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