La vie sans Brahim Filming Locations
La vie sans Brahim Filming Locations
Morocco, a North African country bordering the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea, is distinguished by its Berber, Arabian and European cultural influences. Marrakesh’s medina, a mazelike medieval quarter, offers entertainment in its Djemaa el-Fna square and souks (marketplaces) selling ceramics, jewelry and metal lanterns. The capital Rabat’s Kasbah of the Udayas is a 12th-century royal fort overlooking the water.
Soisy-sur-École is a commune in the Essonne department in Île-de-France in northern France. It is 44 kilometres southeast of Paris. Inhabitants of Soisy-sur-École are known as Soiséens.
La vie sans Brahim (2003)
In Soisy-sur-École (Essonne, France), Mostafa, for thirty years in France, has just sold his grocery store to buy the village bar-tabac. Some time before, he had taken in Brahim, homeless after twenty years of work in Poissy and Marseille. At the grocery store, Brahim, always in a happy mood, had quickly become the town's mascot. Through Mostafa and Brahim, who died suddenly, Laurent Chevallier draws up a bitter observation of integration. Brahim lived alone in the middle of the woods and had sunk into alcoholism. Mostafa worked hard to get him back on track. Far from their native Morocco, their friendship was forged in the small grocery store. One found the warmth of a home and a job there, the other increased energy and an accomplice for a new project: taking over the long-closed café. But the adventure is brutally interrupted by the death of Brahim. In the company of Mostafa, Laurent Chevallier retraces, as far as Morocco, the chaotic life of a marginalized man, who has given no news to his family. He evokes the agony of the village of Soisy-sur-École, the latent racism of its inhabitants under the appearances, and captures in a sensitive way the questions about the notion of integration and the disillusions of Mostafa: "We were three at the burial. Where were those who loved Brahim so much?" Life without Brahim, Mostafa will not be able to resolve it, he will leave the village.
