Le Ciel, les oiseaux … et ta mère (Boys on the Beach)

Djamel Bensalah (1999)

France

Le Ciel, les oiseaux … et ta mère  was the first really big hit in France for a feature film by a director of Maghrebi origin, gaining over a million spectators in its first run.  It was the first film to be directed by Djamel Bensalah, who has since made two other comedies, Le Raid and Il était une fois dans l'oued. However, the success of the film was due in no small measure to the performance of stand-up comedian Jamel Debbouze (who is of Moroccan origin), at the time relatively unknown, but now a major figure in French comedy, including roles in Amelie and Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra.

Le Ciel, les oiseaux … et ta mère takes the 'white, black, beur' trio of loud-mouthed, disadvantaged male youths familiar from La Haine and deposits them, thanks to their ability to win a video documentary competition, in the alien setting of the bourgeois holiday resort of Biarritz.  It derives its comedy from the way in which they strive but fail to make an impression on the place, suggesting that their verbally aggressive masculinity is but a defensive bluff hiding their underlying sexual anxieties and lack of belonging.  The film also addresses the question of racism in a scene in which Debbouze as Youssef is treated in a discriminatory way by a white French bus conductor.  However many spectators found its surface misogyny offensive, despite the romance theme which links Youssef with the Jewish-Parisian girl staying next door. 

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 30 May 2006 •

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