Reviews - On the Plank - Film Reviews - Cannes - Review by Jay Weissberg. On the Edge (Sur la Planche) - review. On the Edge, the first full-length feature by the Moroccan director Leïla Kilani, is powered by a form of black magic that should appeal to audiences everywhere, with bags of energy, a team of explosive young actresses and a poetic hold-up.
Added to which this socially aware intrigue is suffused by the Arab spring. The setting is a city coming to grips with the global market. Young women, drawn from all over Morocco by the promise of social advancement, converge on the new free trade zone and adjoining port. They are split into two categories – textile workers and shrimp-peelers – not blessed with the same appeal. The former enjoy the prestige of a trade connected to leading international brands. For the heroines of this tale, Badia and Imane, Nawal and Asma – two peelers and two stitchers – there is no time to lose.
This double game plays out in two visual styles, at least for Badia and Imane. Between the two worlds, Badia's bedroom serves as an antechamber for metamorphosis. Critic's Notebook: How to Tackle the Palm Springs Film Festival's Massive Program. "The Three Disappearances of Soad Hosni.
" Confronted with a massive lineup of some 187 films, what's the festivalgoer to do? If you're at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, which just concluded in the balmy Southern California low desert, you pick carefully. But what does this mean? Aim for the foreign-language Oscar submissions, all 40 of them, of which this festival is best known? Go for the big-name directors from Cannes, some in the "Modern Masters" section, such Lynne Ramsay with "We Need to Talk About Kevin," the Dardennes with "The Kid With a Bike," Nanni Moretti with "Habemus Papam" or Robert Guédiguian with "The Snows of Kilamanjaro"?
As these lists indicate, the viewer could—again, picking carefully—have a generally good experience in Palm Springs, and maybe even catch a few masterpieces, like Ceylan's. In Focus: On the Edge & Manufactured Landscapes. Faceless people are standing next to the endless production line.
They are wearing the same plastic uniform (pink and blue, pink and blue, pink and blue everywhere); they are working on the same stuff; they feel the same. Nobody knows what the end product will be, and nobody even cares about it. Shapeless bodies are doing the same mechanical motions under the artificial light from the beginning till the end of time. The picture is taken from Manufactured Landscapes, directed by Jennifer Baichwal in 2006. The film follows the journey of a photographer, who is on the mission of documenting the changes in landscapes caused by the developing industry all over the world. Take the scene of Leila Kilani’s On the Edge in which we discover several places in Andreas Gursky’s style: white dressed women are sitting next to each other in neon light, concentrating on their never-ending tasks.
Existing in a modern environment gives a specific chance for contemporary society to define itself. ArtInfo. The Other Casablanca – Abu Dhabi Film Festival On the Edge (Sur la Planche) dir.
Leila Kilani (France/Germany/UAE/Morocco) The End dir. Hicham Lasri (Morocco) There wasn’t much of an Arab Spring in Morocco, but there’s an ambition for creating a new wave of cinema. Morocco has been a location of choice for decades. Futuristic Vision of No Future - Shrimp Pickers in 'On the Edge' On the Edge (Sur la Planche) by Leila Kilani, which premiered at Cannes in the spring, wedges you into a claustrophobic world, no less desperate for its confined space. Soufia Issami in 'On the Edge' by Leila Kilani Angry-faced Badia (Soufia Issami) and her friend Imane (Mouna Bahmad) turn tricks at night, and make extra money stealing the odd thing from their clients. Creepwithme.com - Blog. Variety. Screen Daily. Dir/scr: Leila Kilani.
Morocco/France/Germany. 2011. 110mins Moroccan filmmaker Leila Kilani makes a striking and intriguing fiction feature debut with Sur La Planche, the moody and impressively off-kilter story of two young Casablancan women delving into a life of petty crime in Tangier’ old town. It is a cleverly made film, with a beautifully shot dramatic climax. Balancing plenty of dark close-ups - when the women are out at night - balanced with starkly bright scenes of them at work in a soulless shrimp factory, the film offers a pacy and often decidedly unnerving glimpse into life in Tangier, eschewing any predictable scenes of the historic town and focusing on the underbelly of the city. Jittery, obsessive and edgy Badia (Issami) and her more mellow friend Imane (Bahmad) work daytime peeling shrimps in a Tangier factory, but at night turn tricks and make a little cash on the side by stealing items - ranging from clothes to electronic goods - from their ‘clients’.