Exiles Details

Latcho Drom Director goes back to his roots

Exiles tells the story of a second generation French-Algerian couple's journey back to their families' homeland and follows their journey across France, Spain and Morocco and culminates in a cathartic homecoming and reconciliation with the past in Algiers.

Th young man's family were anti-colonist French who were forced to flee during the Algerian Civil War and the young woman's family are Algerian immigrants to France. Exiles is a moving story of their coming to terms with each other and their place of origin.

Director Tony Gatlif is well known for his gypsy musical oddesseys like Latcho Drom and Vengo and Exiles has some brilliant musical set pieces in Seville and Algiers and a great soundtrack.

The film won the top award for Gatlif at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004.

[Highly rated reviewer]

Excellent film that didn't quite click

This is an excellent film, with fine performances from the two leads and the supporting cast. It has a brilliant sound track that perfectly mirrors the progress of the two main characters, and some interesting twists and turns in the story along the way. But, there was something about the film that didn't quite add up - perhaps it was too quirky or maybe trying too hard to be quirky. You discover a lot about the people in the film, learn a little about the world out there, but ultimately I felt it failed, in some key places, to rise above the caricatures and stereotypes it seemed to want to deconstruct.