saw “divines” last night. directed by french moroccan filmmaker houda benyamina and shot in slums on the edges of the banlieues, it’s full of energy, female protagonists, and formidable female friendships. loved how it flipped many roles, expectations, paradigms and the very normalization of the male gaze. the end is a bit over the top but v much in keeping with jacques audiard. in fact, oulaya amamra reminded me of tahar rahim in “a prophet” – same rawness and magnetism. just stunning to think of how much talent there is out there, how many stories to tell, and new ways of approaching cinema. it’s criminal that we are still being served the same old, white, heteropatriarchal fare.
i loved the closing credits – beautifully haunting, like some kind of sacred text. title designer anaïs mak:
houda had this desire to evoke a sacred script during the end credits with references to the cosmos in particular. so i suggested that we take inspiration from the palimpsest – these are handwritten documents whose writing has been erased to be able to rewrite on top of it. the traces that preceded it are always there to be seen. i think it was an interesting way to portray the character’s quest for a spiritual father – what precedes us but which escapes us.