LA PETITE JÉRUSALEM
Directed & Written by: Karin Albou.
Produced by: Laurent Lavolé & Isabelle Pragier.
Director of Photography: Laurent Brunet.
Edited by: Christiane Lack.
Music by: Cyril Morin.
Released by: Kino.
Language: French & Hebrew with English subtitles.
Country of Origin: France. 96 min. Not Rated.
With: Fanny Valette, Elsa Zylberstein, Bruno Todeschini, Hedi Tillette de Clermont-Tonnerre & Sonia Tahar.

In the morning light, Laura (Fanny Valette), 18, first appears bending over, sliding a knit stocking over her bare leg, her long black curls swinging sensually with each movement. The opening scene points to the subsequent and overwhelming sensuality which hovers over all of this intriguing film, climaxing with a frantic encounter in a janitorial locker room. The film’s frank sexuality provides the strongest contradiction to its strong religious overtones.

In a concrete housing project flanking Paris, Laura lives with her close-knit family, Jewish Orthodox refugees from Tunisia: her matchmaking mother, older sister Mathilde (Elsa Zylberstein) and her four children and husband, Ariel (Bruno Todeschini). Devoutly observant, Mathilde wears wigs in public - she can’t reveal her hair to strangers; Ariel sports long hair, dresses in black, and prays out loud daily.

The sisters are perfect foils, Laura strong-minded, independent, and cynical; Mathilde mild, obeisant and complacent. But the two undergo somewhat of a character switch as Laura’s previous fear of love begins to crack, and her sister’s naiveté is tainted with the realization of an unfaithful husband. Laura, whose obsession with Kantian philosophy leads her to distrust everything unrelated to his ideas, learns that some human instincts - namely love - should perhaps not be repressed. But her subsequent love affair with Djamel (Hedi Tillette de Clermont-Tonnerre), an Algerian ex-journalist, seems somewhat forced, particularly because their romance escalates out of nowhere to the status of Romeo and Juliet. Laura (in a melodramatic rush of desperation) nearly follows in Juliet’s footsteps after realizing their relationship cannot last due to religious differences.

Perhaps foreshadowing her fate, the theme of aloneness is repeated numerous times - Laura tells her sister as they walk together “On est toujours seule,” (We are always alone). After having told Laura his Muslim family will not approve of their relationship, Djamel exclaims in a sudden feverish outburst, “Alone! Why am I always alone!” And Mathilde, in her severed and rather stuffy marriage, seems always lonely, two sad green eyes seeming to reach out for something unattainable. Though its conflicts are not firmly resolved, the film ends with a streak of hope.

As the sisters, Valette and Zylberstein's disarming vulnerability offsets Laura's stridency ("I won’t be a slave to my senses") and Mathilde's frigidity. Besides sexually provocative (there’s even some tension between Laura and her brother-in-law), the film also ominously paints a picture of a France dangerously threatened by insurmountable religious intolerance. Even that loaded theme is intricately woven into this enclave’s already heavily-charged atmosphere. Parisa Vaziri
January 27, 2006