Fashion and female friendship become tools of resistance in “Papicha,” Mounia Meddour’s partly autobiographical feature whose extreme tonal flips — from gaiety to trauma, tenderness to tragedy — only make it all the more touching.
Set in the late 1990s during the Algerian Civil War and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, the movie hovers protectively around Nedjma (Lyna Khoudri), 18, a university student and a talented designer. In a vibrantly shot opening sequence, she and a friend (Shirine Boutella) sneak out of their dorm to go to a nightclub, changing clothes and applying makeup in an illegal taxi.
“Aren’t you scared?” a guard asks at a checkpoint, suspiciously eyeing their hastily donned head scarves. But “Papicha” (Algerian slang for a cool girl), like Nedjma, has no time for fear; and as groups of women wearing black hijabs patrol the streets and invade the campus, Nedjma persuades her friends to help her stage a fashion show in defiance of the unwanted moral policing.
Marked by a fierce vitality and vivid emotional authenticity, “Papicha” thrives on the heat of Nedjma’s anger and the glorious bond among the mostly young female performers. (Male characters are unfortunately drawn far more thinly.) Terrible things happen; but by celebrating the women’s intimacy and naïve exuberance, Meddour eases the suffocating noose of religious extremism. And by making powerful visual choices — like Nedjma clawing frantically at the earth for beets to dye bloodstained fabric — the director and her cinematographer, Léo Lefèvre, forge a language of rebellion that’s as beautiful as it is bitter.
Papicha
Not rated. In French and Arabic, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 48 minutes. Watch on Film at Lincoln Center’s virtual cinema.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
