The Wedding Song | THE WEDDING BRIDES Young women weather the trials of matrimony in The Wedding Song
THE WEDDING BRIDES Young women weather the trials of matrimony in The Wedding Song
Movie Review

The Wedding Song

EW's GRADE
B

Details Rated: Unrated; Length: 100 Minutes; Genres: Drama, Foreign Language; With: Olympe Borval and Lizzie Brochere; Distributor: Strand Releasing

In Nazi-occupied Tunis in 1942, a young Muslim woman (Olympe Borval) and her Jewish best friend (Lizzie Brocheré), each with marriage ahead, try to make sense of a world in which male-dominated occupation extends even to the girls' own bodies. Writer-director Karin Albou (who plays the mother of the Jewish bride) has a sensuous, intimate filmmaking style that overrides The Wedding Song's more precariously loaded plot parallels. And her authoritative depiction of culturally precise, sexually charged feminine rituals (including pleasurable bathing in the hammam and more painful wedding prep) opens a door otherwise locked to outsiders. B

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Originally posted Oct 28, 2009 Published in issue #1074 Nov 06, 2009 Order article reprints

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