allAfrica.com — 'The Other World'' directed by Merzak Allouache, is dramatic adaptation of a tale about a young French-Algerian woman searching for her missing fiancé. The movie opens with Yasmine’s (Marie Brahimi) search for her husband which leads her back to her native war torn country of Algeria, from her comfortable home in France. Her French-Algerian fiancé Rachid (Nazim Boudjenah) has joined The People’s National Army, where on his first mission, his convoy is attacked. No one knows if her fiancé is alive or dead, but Yasmine goes on a wild chase through the hills of Algiers to find if he survived the attack.
On her heroic journey she encounters the militia that attacked her fiancé’s convoy. They take her prisoner, but she quickly befriends one of her young attackers, Hakim (Karim Bouaiche). He leads her to safety only to take her for himself. She soon escapes his piercing grip, and armed with the knowledge that two of the men in the convoy escaped the attack, she returns to the city to talk to one of the officers (Abdelkrim Bahloul). She learns where her fiancé lived before joining the army, and believes, if he’s alive, that he returned to his home in Algeria. Little does she know that there are militia men hot on her trail. Her search continues to take her on a long journey. The question lurks in her mind will she ever find her fiancé and if so is he alive? The ending will have you climbing off you seat for more.
The film’s production was good, the scenery was excellent, and the plot is very captivating. The filmmakers also made a good point of identifying the religious parameters that are within Algerian culture
The script, however, was not well written. The film’s music, which came on often, went from jazz, to classical, to funk, to house, to techno, to country, to Punjabi, to salsa. The music at times made it difficult to connect with what was going on in the film’s story. There were also many unanswered questions, which could offer a great squeal, but the characters that were essential to the making of the plot were not identified.
The Other World: France/Algeria, 2001, 90min, drama, French with English subtitles. Directed by Merzak Allouache
Abdul-Qadir D. Islam is a student at Howard University
