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The String

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Duration: 7 days

£2.53

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Synopsis

In The String, staring international gay sensation Salim Kechiouche (Full Speed, Grande École, Three Dancing Slaves, Criminal Lovers) class, cultural and sexual differences are explored. This is a torridly romantic, unrelentingly sensual, positively gorgeous drama - also co-starring Italian superstar from the past: Claudia Cardinale.

Review

Set in arid Tunisia, tall, quiet Malik (Antonin Stahly-Vishwanadan), a 30-year-old Parisian architect, returns to his homeland after the death of his father. He’s greeted warmly by his over-bearing, petulant mother (Cardinale) and is immediately confronted with her expectation that he stay and get married. This now strange world of his youth, his mother’s pressure and his barely hidden homosexuality set off anxiety attacks in Malik, who finally finds relief when he meets the darkly handsome handyman, Balil (Salim Kechiouche). They begin a tentative relationship, but Islamic mores, a still class conscience society, and the ever-presence of his mother threaten their young love. The String is a forbidden love story as well as a character study of people lost in rapidly changing cultures. Don’t miss this engaging, insightful and undeniably sexy drama. (French, Arabic with English subtitles)

-- Raymond Murray

Customer Reviews

Le Fil

Spongey wrote on 05/29/2011:

Malik returns home to Tunisia after living in France. His father has just passed and his childhood anxieties resurface after he moves in with his mother who doesn't know he's gay. It's a new take on the coming out story. To make matter's worse he decides to marry the lesbian he impregnated! It sounds wacky and contrived, but the story works. Malik's problems seem to fade away for a little while when he falls for Bilal, the cute houseboy at his mother's residence. Things finally come to head when Sara (Malik's mom) walks in on the boys and she becomes ill.

There is a lot going on here, with class struggle, mental anxieties, coming out, etc. And who knew Tunisia was so progressive? The ending wraps up all the lose strings quite nicely. We finally get a love story where neurosis doesn't spell doom!!

Gay in Tunisia

Amos Lassen wrote on 07/14/2010:

“The String” (“Le Fil”)

Gay in Tunisia

Amos Lassen

Young and handsome Malik returns home to Tunisia from France to take up work as an architect. His father died and he moves back in with his widowed mom (Claudia Cardinale—remember her?... you won’t recognize her but we all get older). Her house is wonderful but Malik’s mother has no idea that he is gay and in fact, he prefers a rough crowd. Bilal is his mother’s handyman who lives on the grounds and Malik is attracted to him. In deference to his mother’s wishes, Malik decides to marry his work partner, a lesbian who has become pregnant by artificial insemination and Malik wants the child to have a father.
Malik meets his mom's delicious young handyman, Balil (Salim Kechiouche). “The String” does prove to be a sensitive look at class and custom, with some good performances and gorgeous Tunisian scenery. Up until now the plot sounds all too predictable but fear not as this is a wise and loving, witty and sophisticated, erotic vision of how life should be and it erases whatever ideas we may have had about gay life in Muslim countries.The social discrimination against homosexuals in Tunisia is reflected in the staging of director Mehdi Ben Attia. Homosexuality as the protagonist lives in this sensual film is no longermarked by the obliteration of shameful past generations, just as the border between France , and Tunisia has become permeable in both directions of immigration. This allows Malik and his partners to meet at the corner of the street, under the influence of drugs , and without fear of being carried away by an arbitrary police raid .
“The String” tells the story of the otherness of the young architect and is also a look into gay life in Tunisia.