A peine j'ouvre les yeux (As I open my eyes)

The movie A peine j'ouvre les yeux, by Leyla BOUZID, was shot for 6 months in 2015, and will be released in February 2016. It's a movie showing the life of a young 18 year old girl who lives in Tunisia. She lives with her mom and her father is not often home because of his job, but we see him occasionally in the movie. The protagonist, Farah, is in a band with youngsters, and she has difficulties with her mom not being okay with the fact that she wants to do music studies, musicology to be exact, so she's fighting to know what she really wants in her life, but it's not easy when you live in a country where expression rights have strict limits.

 

First, the movie pleased us all, except for some people who said that the ending was brutal and too sudden, even if most of the movie was great. They said that because they identified to the hero, Farah, and they were touched by her story. They thought that Leyla B. would show us what would really happen to Farah at the end, but it was our turn to guess what would happen to her, which did not please most of the audience.

Second, the theme of War On Screen is war, obviously, and some people argued that the movie doesn't match the theme. But knowing that in the festival, there are numerous movies about the war theme, some of us really appreciate that there's at least one movie that's not too war-centered, talking about world wars or tanks, bullets, invasion, domination or any similar words.

Plus, we can say that the mother-daughter showdown in the beginning and middle of the movie is an important feature of the film, because we can feel that they're getting closer and closer as the movie goes, and finally, at the end, they're closer than ever.

We really liked the movie, it was captivating and enriching, because we could see with our eyes what Tunisia really looked like, and not with clichés or anything. And telling the story of a girl that lives there is pretty interesting and fascinating, no wonder the audience was attached to the protagonist. Even though the dramatic moments could literally kill the funny parts, I think Leyla BOUZID did it on purpose because the main goal of the movie was to show the reality, and by that we need to see everything there is to see, dramatic, funny, hilarious and sad parts.

So for those who want to see the movie, you will like it., you will enjoy it, probably hate it because of the moments of sadness, but if you love music, like one of us, you will love it, the music is omnipresent.

Nicolas JEAN-LEON, Louisa EL KADIRI, Pauline JEROME

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