Divines
Tags: violence

Plot synopsis:
Dounia is a teenage girl living in a housing project on the outskirts of Paris with her mother. She and her best friend Maimouna hustle for money, shoplifting from supermarkets and then reselling their wares on the streets to their classmates.
The two girls have a secret hiding place in the catwalk of a local theatre where they observe dance auditions. Djigui, an untrained dancer, catches Dounia's eye. One day Maimouna dares Dounia to spit on him and she does, resulting in him trying to chase her down. Trying to follow Dounia he ends up slipping and she rescues him by pulling him up from the catwalk.
During school Dounia is expected to be trained as a receptionist, rebelling against her teacher she makes fun of her for having no money and then vows to earn more money than her teacher could ever dream of, before quitting school. One of the older students at school, Rebecca, shows the kids video from a trip abroad and says she wants to go and open a bar and enter the sex tourism industry which is constantly booming. Determined to be part of Rebecca's crew, Dounia observes her giving drugs to Samir and then follows him. Discovering where he hides his drugs, she steals them from him and brings them to Rebecca, telling her that she would do a better job as a dealer. Impressed, Rebecca agrees to let Dounia start working for her.
Rebecca gives Dounia and Maimouna a series of odd jobs which they successfully complete, working up the ranks from chores, to dealing drugs. Rebecca eventually confides in them that she wants to use Dounia as bait to sneak into the apartment of Reda, a rich man, to steal one hundred thousand euros off of him as he once told her where it was hidden in his apartment during a drug binge.
Dounia continues to hide her money in the theatre but when it is gone she confronts Djigui who refuses to give it back.
Dounia and Maimouna succeed in getting the mark to notice Dounia, however when it's time to leave the club they find Samir isn't where he said he would be. Going home Dounia finds Samir having sex with her mother. Enraged she goes to his home and burns his car. When the firefighters show up she throws glass bottles at them leading her to be arrested. When her mother picks her up at the station, the two are berated by Maimouna's parents and Dounia loses Rebecca's favor.
Dounia goes to Djigui to get her money back in order to gain favour back from Rebecca. Djigui tells her he has been hired as the principle dancer in the show and gives her tickets to watch him perform. Instead of going to see him Dounia goes on a date with Reda. He takes her to his apartment and when he leaves to take a shower Dounia begins searching for his secret cache of money. She is discovered by Reda, who savagely beats her before attempting to rape her. Dounia fights back, knocking out Reda and then manages to locate the money. She leaves some of the money with her mother and hides some for Maimouna intending to leave on tour with Djigui.
Before she can go she receives a message from Rebecca who is holding Maimouna hostage until Dounia returns. Dounia brings the money to Rebecca, but she notices that some of it is missing and in a rage, douses Dounia with gasoline and threatens to burn her. Before she can Samir realizes that the money is at her mother's home and leaves to go get it. When Rebecca insults Dounia, she furiously attacks her, and in the ensuing fight Rebecca throws a lighter and the room they are in catches fire with them locked inside. Maimouna is able to knock through a vent but is too large to go through. Rebecca escapes and Maimouna urges Dounia to leave as her face is covered in gas. The money they were fighting over burns behind them. The firemen arrive in time, but wait outside as they are not allowed to fight fires in the neighbourhood anymore without the presence of riot police. Dounia begs them to save her friend, but they are unmoved and say they cannot go inside until the police arrive. By the time the riot police arrive the building explodes and the crowd, furious that they waited so long, begin to attack them.

Review: Scene after scene, the characters, the settings, the relationship, each and every element comes in your face with incredible strength; from classroom argument to daughter-mother interaction, nothing is easy and nothing doesn't hurt.
Praise must of course go towards the main character, surprisingly multifaceted, rich and intense in about any moment of the film.
All actresses and actors did an amazing job.£ Thank you Houda, the film maker for making us such a beautiful movie..
This is one very affecting movie, a type of film that fills you with a sense of real people feeling real emotions --nothing is fake, all the characters and all their needs are as real and painful as it gets.
And just as in life, nothing is resolved in a satisfying ending.The lead actress is one very ambitious young lady, Oulaya Amamra, who will make her mark on cinematic history soon, but you might want to catch her in her early stage to see how she progresses quickly to Meryl Streep (or at least Jennifer Lawrence) status.
Her character's name is Dounia, and she is a daughter of the town slut in a Roma (Gypsy) camp.Her best friend, Maimounia, a black girl, daughter of a Muslim priest, is as lovable as they come.
There is no simple resolution, and therefore, the film is just like life: it is completely and utterly unfair.Although the plot seems simple, it is extremely more complex and a summary of the action doesn't do justice to the story.
Dounia has a love-hate relationship with a male dancer that takes too much away from the rest of the film, and the scenes of the dancer are way over long and unnecessary, but thankfully it is the relationship that she has with her best female friend that is the true heart of the film.To say more would detract from one's enjoyment of the twists and turns that ensue during the course of the film.
Rest assured, you will be glad you spent time in the company of the actresses and the female director of this very impressive film..
What I expected to be a medicare classic sentimental a girl-from-the-ghetto story, turned up to be an extraordinary experience of incredibly acted, beautifully complex, unconventionally artistic movie.
If this is the director's first feature movie, I am genuinely looking for next one.The story is about a 15-year-old Muslim girl called Dounia and her black friend Maimouna that both grow up in a poor migrant superb of Paris.They have both different characters and family situation, but they both share their insecurities and hopes with each other openly and you can feel the strength of their influence on each other even when it seems like they paths split.They are both clueless teenage girls, that feel like they deserve more in life than what they were given by their parents or society.
And what's more, her friend Maimonua doesn't seem to be so impressed with him as Dounia, so she acts very ambiguously toward him and even sees him as weak, even though she is not sure that what she sees as a weakness is actually a weakness after all.
This split between her contradictory emotions is amazingly well acted (in my opinion by a rising star) young actress Oulaya Amamra.The ghetto, lack of meaning, lack of guidance and respected adult authorities, lack of social (economic) opportunities and feeling of being an alien in someone else's society is the true antagonist of the story.It drives Dounia (and Maimonua follows her in admiration) to make naive and bad choices, but at the same time you feel something very authentic and even admirable in her drive to find the most accessible way out of her frustrating situation.
So when she drops out of school and start selling drugs, the world looks like it belongs to her (and her best friend), unable to see inevitable consequences of the path she puts herself and their friendship in.And as the movie progress, you ask yourself how much she can get away with and will she finally learn harsh life lessons on her own or will the unusual relationship with the dancer help her to see beyond distorted values she desperately tries to believe in?
Besides I read that the "self-thought" director Houda Benyamina herself grew up in the type of suburb she captures in this movie, so you can't accuse her of over-dramatization or stereotyping.I've seen A Man called Ove (2016) and Toni Erdmann (2016) which are both nominated for 2017 Oscars for foreign movies, but I think Divines deserves it more.
This is a heart-wrenching and breathtaking story, with some of the best acting I've seen all year.
I recently visited Paris and this movie really shed light on the crime rate that I hear so much about in the states.
From the story line, to the actors, to the scenery, to the video quality this movie should easily rise to the top of the charts.
Hmmmm, a Golden Globe nomination for best foreign movie ??
We have this girl living in a Roma camp in some Paris suburb, so we know this is a social drama.
They add some social stereotypes around her, a slutty mother, a friend with very religious Muslim parents, a local gangster/drug dealer, (well, you get the drift i'm sure), all people with no real prospect of a future.
Well it seems the Globe jury bought the premise, but in my opinion this movie is 90 % window dressing to cover the fact that it's not much of a story.
The girl is obsessed with making a lot of money, but she's also completely clueless and goes from one stupid plan to another, without realizing that there might be consequences for her actions.
To me it seems like some new director straight out of film school, and determined to make an impression just piled a lot of clichés on top of each other and forgot that really great movies are driven by good stories..
This is undoubtedly one of the best movies I've seen.
The acting by the main character (Dounya) is phenomenal, and I am hoping to see her in more films in the future.
Overall, its a must see film that shows the dark realities many people around the world face.
The director, like the main character, wants success.
The film was made to please the eyes and the minds of old f*rts that fill the juries and the commissions that are specialized in turning the taxpayer money into alms for those who know how to please.There are social statements, but they are void and not offensive, like the small exercise in accountancy at the beginning: "how much you make?
She can in one scene have a hard time coping with the promiscuity of her mother pointing out her decision to fight that, and in another scene go lure a violent man with sex.In the end there is no story.
And the story is not on screen but in the white old man's mind, the one who handles the taxpayer money.
The high rise building is only the backdrop to remind the viewer of the 5 o'clock news.It could have been a 100 minutes story on a budget with only Oulaya Amamra, Déborah Lukumuena and Jisca Kalvanda.
But that association is another way to make a living dancing with the state and tearing the stories apart while moving from place to place to please white old men in power.
Stronger films, more accessible stories.
When you follow the story of the movie, a few questions are coming up and the most important one is What the movie was trying to say to audiences?
Well, the movie is trying to point out that achieving money in any dirty deal cannot buy a good true friendship.
She dreams for having money to change her life and her mother's too.
By making wrong decisions, she lost her best friend.
Moreover, it doesn't show what happens after murdering the boss guy (I forgot his name) for stealing his money from his home.If the story could be going on, then Dounia had to be arrested by police.
In addition to the explanations stated above, the action of players was OK, specially Oulaya Amamra as Dounia.
All in all, I was expecting a better movie.
My big problem about this movie is its story.
If I was to list all of the things that the director/writer, Houda Benyamina did well with this film I would be writing for days, so to name a few, the story was fascinating and unique, the acting was better than superb and with the entire cast, the cinematography was outstanding, choice of musical composition was just perfect for the film and the story progression was just awesome and left the viewer guessing the entire time with what will happen next.
The two films follow similar protagonists, both 16 year old girls growing up in the rough banlieu of Paris.
But while Girlhood was the story of a girl growing up in the ghetto told by someone who wasn't from that area, Benyamina is someone who came from those places and understands it intimately and as a result her film feels more vibrant and multi- dimensional.
Divines is focused on Dounia (Oulaya Amamra, phenomenal), a plucky young teen who lives in makeshift tent camp with her mother who drinks too much and sleeps around.
Instead, thinking only of money, she hustles her way into getting a job with Rebecca, the neighbourhood drug dealer.
Now in another movie (like Girlhood) this would be represented in a very moralistic fashion but Benyamina shows how for someone like Dounia, working her way up to drug dealer is probably the quickest, most interesting way for her to achieve her goals.
And while Dounia does some morally dubious things the movie understands why and never judges her.
Benyamina also has some fun playing with her characters and her style and there are some dance and fantasy sequences that make this play like a ghetto fairy tale.
Divines is ultimately a film about forgotten people trying to make it anyway they can and Benyamina makes sure that you remember them..
I really wasn't expecting this to be so good, thinking it to be a Netflix Original, but upon further investigation, I see that they just bought the film, after it was shown at Cannes.
Perhaps Houda Benyamina is a devotee of Jacques Audiard, but how could one criticize that?This is not really a movie about race; rather one that allows us (I'm white) to transcend race, and imagine living a different life, at least for a part of two hours.
The story got me hooked from begining to end.
For me, the best things about this movie are:
Those "magical" moments dancing.I give it 10 stars because it has moved me to tears (only a few lol) but that's quite a feat in my case.Really good movie: good story, good characters, good actors and good end.
From an artistic point of view, this movie is beautiful.
A young girl trying to escape the financial fate her mother has accepted gets involved with a local hoodlum in order to make money..
If there is one reason to love Netflix it is because it gives you access to films like these in the comfort of your own home.
With all that said, let's talk about Divines.Characters & StoryDounia (Oulaya Amamra)When you grow up in a Roma camp with a mom who is not only embarrassing but seems to lack maturity, it makes your desire for a better life skyrocket.
That is Dounia's dream and she plans on bringing best friend Maimouna (Déborah Lukumuena) right with her.
A dancer who originally is just someone Dounia, with Maimouna, watch from the rafters.
Which life will be available to her and ultimately, can her dreams come true despite all that she has done?HighlightsExperience FriendshipIt isn't clear when Dounia and Maimouna's friendship started, but similar to Girlhood, it is beautiful to watch two girls empower each other, be ride or die for one another, and have this sisterhood like bond which is enviable.
For while often it seemed Maimouna was just along for the ride, she never fell prey to just being the big black best friend.
For whether it was showing us her parents, us understanding how deeply she believed in her faith and how that influenced her, she wasn't made out to be shallow.A Cute Love AffairThough certainly not a huge part of the film, it was hard to not swoon a bit when it came to Dounia and Djigui's relationship.
For while Amamra's youthfulness made you question if Djigui was too old for her, you can't help but lose yourself in the type of romance you could see being its own movie.
For their scenes dancing together and you being able to tell he is definitely her first love, oh my god it makes you want to squeal.The Desire For MoreWhat is always necessary, but not always done, is understanding the motive and what drives the characters.
With this film, it is clear from Dounia to Samir (Yasin Houicha) and everyone in between.
For whether it is Maimouna sticking with Dounia because she makes her feel wanted, beautiful and free; Samir desiring Rebecca's approval for she calls him her brother and it makes him feel good; or Djigui wanting to dance because of the feeling it gives him, everyone's motives are clear.The one especially clear though is Dounia who between seeing her mother, a lecture from her teacher, and the environment she grows up in, sees crime and drugs as the easiest way to stability and money.
So whether it is robbing someone to prove herself, figuring out how to drive a scooter to be more useful, or even how to go from a plain Jane to a seductress, she figures out a way and seeing her do so is something to watch.Oulaya AmamraLeading to the last bit of praise required: That for the lead Ms. Amamra.
Amamra does that for whether it is hoping love will be true with Djigui, that she doesn't end up dead working for Rebecca, and that Maimouna doesn't abandon her when she needs her most, she gets you so emotionally invested.CriticismA Cheap & Rushed EndingThus making me wonder why the ending that was done was chosen?
Which, considering all that preceded, honestly the ending seemed like the writers either didn't want you to have closure or decided to end things there for otherwise this movie would be ridiculously long.Overall: Worth SeeingI hope, similar to Lea Seydoux, this introduction to Oulaya Amamra is her invitation to the world stage.
The story is set in gay Paris - and told through the eyes of Dounia, a young girl struggling to find her way (cliche number one).
First, she tries to get credibility with the dealer she idolizes, then she struggles with her family situation and mother, then she struggles with her emerging feeling of horniness towards a male dancer, then she struggles to get away from the dealer she previously idolized, etc.The character is unpredictable, doing things that later come back to get her and not learning the error of her ways at all.
I get the feeling that at the end of the story the character hasn't matured at all - in fact her spazzy unpredictability results in the death of a friend.
And the message is so mixed that there's no feeling of learning or growth in the movie - is it about the hard circumstances of migrants in France?Soundtrack is weird too, a few scenes completely spoiled by music that does NOT work for that particular act.I'd give it a miss - much better fare on Netflix these days such as John Wick, The Last King, etc..
The film incites who's watched it into a reflection about life and about the system we live!When the film ended I felt like I lost a part of me!
I was still wanting to watch it and see the main character's fate.
The Mozart's Requiem in the film was as divine as the movie was!.
Winner of the 2016 Audience Award for New Auteurs at AFI Fest, DIVINES is a feature film loaded with emotion that pivots from one side of the spectrum to the other.
It is not a coming of age story but rather, a story about two girls that are best friends and the lead's, Dounia, conflict of her soul.
Director Hounda delivers a touching piece of cinema that blurred my emotion of how I feel about the lead character played by Oulaya Amamra.
The protagonist's circumstances and choices make for a masterful narrative story that ultimately leaves you feeling the characters emptiness and guilt.Dounia is an ambitious girl who lives in a gypsy camp in Paris with her mother, who is considered the camp slut.
The only person in her life that brings light and joy is her friend Maimouna.
Throughout the film I am constantly changing my mind on how I feel about the two friends.
This creative storytelling provided me the opportunity to care for the girls despite their wicked and edacious actions.The pacing of the film is superb doubling down on Dounia's disturbed circumstances and poor decision making motivated by disease only money could cure.
On one side, my inner child wants Dounia and Maimouna to succeed in obtaining the riches they desire, even through indecent means.
The harsh reality of Dounia's choices surrounded by the reality of a young girl involved in street life and her motivation of easy virtue slowly pulled me back ultimately lead me to judge the character as immoral.In the end I was left feeling empathy for the characters.
The happy ending presented for Dounia was just that a fairy tale.
The characters motivation provided her heart and soul with meaning but ended up being the very thing that left her heartless and empty in the end.