Actress Hafsia Herzi has already climbed the steps more than once when she was led by Mihaileanu, Bonello and Kechiche. But it was well as a director that she was expected on the red carpet this year. Adapting the eponymous autofiction of Fatima Daas, The little last reveals the inner struggle of a Muslim teenager who is increasingly attracted to women. From the suburbs to the faculty of philosophy, the girl questions the blind spots of Islam in the face of her irresistible sexual emancipation.
Fatima's Life
Submitted as an official selection, The little last begins in the context of a suburban high school, where classmates s'agglutinate around two loustics who tell of their sexual frascs the day before. Teens talked about an unlikely ass story. Telled as in a one-man show, the exploit is shared with the small troupe, between curiosity, laughter and breakage in rules. Hafsia Herzi manages to represent the unbridled tone and good child of children who quibble and imitate to melt into the mass.
Sometimes homophobic remarks fuse with age-specific confounding naivety. The word « PD » is on the lips of all high school girls and boys. In adolescence, it is a term as natural as a « Hello. » addressed to the awakening. Insult, annoyed to them, is part of the repertoire of the young Robert of the working-class neighborhoods. It's one of the attributes of modern ado to be part of the group, like the word « brother » to all goes, variation in « man », so popular in the 1990s. These words punctuate a language characterized by the permanent clash of young people in the midst of inner bubbling. In just a few minutes, the filmmaker defines the framework in which Fatima operates.
Driven by credible dialogues, Hafsia Herzi's film depicts the inner tears of young people who continue to stage themselves. Despite their mimicry, teenagers silently question their desires. Fatima, a discreet student with missed boys' airs, asks questions that will generate replicas until her young adult life. It's in college that Fatima discovers the Speech of voluntary servitude. Written by Etienne de La Boétie in 1574 during the reign of Henri III, this timeless text and founder of libertarian thought has a symbolic significance: it was between 16 and 18 years old, at an age similar to that of Fatima, that the young man questioned the foundations and limits of feudalism. It is also the Boetia which, the first, theorized the concept of « Voluntary servitude », inviting the people to disobedience. The coming of the subject is possible only if the desire is liberated.
« Be determined not to serve any more and you are free. »
Like The life of Adele with whom The little last shares the theme of sexual emancipation by the prism of a young girl's emerging homosexuality, the film by Hafsia Herzi also uses the University as a space for a moment of revelation. We find Sartre and existentialism at Kechiche, La Boétie and « voluntary servitude » Herzi's. Where Kechiche sometimes fell into the trap of text explanation, the director showed much more subtlety, proceeding by small touches. At the Tunisian filmmaker, we avoid the tarabiscoted sequences like that of the kiss of Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos, a scene captured under a ray of sunshine. Perhaps also that the popular social class, from which Fatima came, favors the natural side of the scenes, as opposed to those of Kechiche, who claims a little too fast from the school of naturalism.
Another notable difference is that the casting of the two films differs widely. No big-caliber stars in The little last On the contrary, Hafsia Herzi preferred a foreign actress to the seral. Narrated during a wild casting during a march of pride, Nadia Melliti is a former high-level footballer, as the figure of Fatima she embodies. Low hat for those pieces of life that ring with such a correctness that forces respect.
Where Kechiche exposes the bodies by multiplying – to the fortitude – the shots taken during the first lesbian rapport of his two protagonists, the female gaze of Hafsia Herzi scrupulously deconstructs the grammar of the Life of Adele. The filmmaker « Open » slowly what the image gives to see, like a body that would more readily delude itself once freed from the eyes of others. The little last sounds fairer than The life of Adele, preferring to leave the part beautiful to interpretation, especially during the first meetings. Has there really been a report after that black screen? Doubt is allowed, while Fatima then appears dressed at the window. Not modest though, The little last Can offer another look at lesbian sexuality, which makes sex liberation scenes displayed on the screen even more powerful later with remarkable sensuality. The little last almost acts as a negative of Kechiche's film (and that's so much better).
Multiple identity
Other success The little last, with rare intelligence the death angles of religion, a fortiori of Islam. Long put on the same plane as incest and infidelity, homosexuality was for a long time repressed by the monotheistic sacred texts. Homosexuality is a subject haramEven though it is practiced massively in the shadows and punished at varying degrees of criminalization according to the regimes in place, from the Maghreb to the Middle East. In France, the question of acceptance of homosexuality is not settled at the same sign according to cults. On this point, let us note an additional degree of discrimination depending on whether it is practised by women or men. In Islam, homosexuality is considered « the worst abomination » and even more so when it involves the male sex. We oppose the « liwat » male to her female equivalent « sihaq », the second of which falls within « legal vacuum » In the majority of countries, there is little attention given to women.
In particular, it is revealed by one of the memorable scenes of The little last where Fatima will repent in front of an imam whose answer, disconnected from the real, is ready to smile as much as she despairs. The latter deploys an improbable argumentary in the benevolent tone, but which demonstrates the limitations of religious texts on sexuality, whether Christian, Islamic or Antediluvian. Surah 7:80-84 of the Qur'an is still a highly sensitive subject according to whether it is interpreted by progressives or rigorists. « You approach men with desire, instead of women. You are a transgressor people » explains one of the controversial verses of the Qur'an. It is the story of the people of Loth who were punished with a rain of stones for having transgressed dogma by giving – among other things – homosexuality. Like any religious text, this passage demonstrates the difficulty of adapting to our times, if we are content with a literal interpretation.
The fate of the people « depraved » de Loth has blatant similarities with that recorded in the biblical myth of Sodom and Gomorrah, which is also referred to by Imam. The two nearby cities destroyed by sulphur and fire suffered the wrath of a vengeful God. The latter wanted to punish the proud sins committed by a people who had compromised themselves by succumbing to fornication. Homosexuality is considered a sin by Christendom and a « fāhisha » (debauchery, obscenity) in Islam. It is the same archaic reading, if not primitive, because it prohibits any questioning of texts taken to the letter. By not limiting herself to Islam and by opening the perimeter to all Jewish, Muslim and Catholic cults, the Tunisian director realizes an unfailing, revealing how the religions still struggle to move their lines. « Having a homosexual inclination is tolerated as long as there is no penetration » explains imam before adding « It's less worse between women ». General laugh in the room...
Know yourself
How can you be yourself when the profession of faith opposes it? This is the insoluble question raised by Hafsia Herzi with remarkable accuracy that might well make him clinch the golden palm by deciding to open dialogue in communities where speech is forced on such a subject which is essential to personal development. There's evidence that Herzi's shot in the mile. Should it be concluded that The little last Is a movie that bothers? In addition to the difficulties of financing, the shooting of the film made in the suburbs in the Grand-Est was not at all rest, the decor of the film having been partially destroyed. As a result of the threats on the team, the filming had to be interrupted about ten days in Nancy and the teams moved elsewhere as she explains in a Interview granted to France inter :
« It's been difficult, really, from the start of the search for funding, we haven't been too supported, but we have been by the right people. I thought it was going to be a complicated movie to make, but then it went very well, except for the shooting... There are quite a few technicians who were stoned, threatened because some people had heard about the subject and disagreed with it. »
There is no doubt that the way to go is still immense for sexuality to become a subject that belongs only to oneself. For all its qualities and in the face of a fierce competition of heavy goods vehicles like Sirāt and Resurrection, The little last is our heart winner for the golden palm.
[...] this was not necessarily our first choice, The Little Last, Sirāt and Resurrection having serious assets to assert, award the supreme distinction [...]