The subtitles wouldn’t show up in the DVD player but I watched the film anyway. An interesting experiment in seeing how much I could follow with the dialog in effect removed. Put the case away so as not to read more of the notes. What I knew going in was that this was written and directed by a French/Algerian woman (Yamina Benguigui) and had to do with an Algerian woman joining her husband in France after he’d been working there on his own for awhile. It was frustrating sometimes because I knew I was missing important details that would make what was happening clearer, but the performances of Fejria Deliba and her supporting cast were so clearly communicative that it wasn’t hard to understand the basic story at all. A painful situation for Zouina, more or less dragged by a hateful, carping mother-in-law away from her mother, sisters and friends to live in a foreign country with a husband she no longer truly knows. In France she has no allies or friends, being at the mercy of the tyrannical harpy with no support from her distrustful husband and has to contend with white neighbors who are suspicious and unaccepting of Algerian cultural differences. The divorcee on the other side of their house takes an interest in Zouina and wants to be her friend, but her overtures get Zouina in still more trouble with the harpy and the husband. In desperation, she and the children take to sneaking out whenever the husband and mother-in-law are gone from the house for a few hours (later I learned this took place on Sundays, which accounted for the title, which roughly translates to "thank Allah for Sunday"). On their first outing I thought Zouina was running away with the children, but it became evident that she was looking either for a relative or other Algerian woman she had heard lived nearby, someone she could safely cultivate a relationship with. But her last hope seems to be dashed when she finally finds the woman, who is reluctantly, suspiciously welcoming. After a short while she throws Zouina and her children out of the house, shouting some sort of imprecation. My guess was that Zouina had said something about leaving home without her husband’s permission, incurring conservative disapproval instead of sympathy. Heartbroken by this rejection, Zouina bangs on the door, obviously begging to be accepted/welcomed, and smashes her fist through a window while the children try to pull her away. Instead of getting back in the taxi to go home, she takes the children on the bus. The very bus driven by a young man who’s been watching for her whenever he goes by her house. He makes all the other passengers get off, then takes Zouina and the children home.
I ended up watching the film again on my computer. Magically, the subtitles appeared. Even with the dialog made clear, the film’s closing scene, though pleasing, was puzzling. I thought for sure Zouina would be heading home into her worst beating ever, especially when brought home by another man. Everyone is waiting on the front step, mother-in-law in full spate. But hubby rounds on his mother for the first time ever, tells her to shut up, then faces Zouina with something like concern in his face. Was he newly cognizant of her spirit and suddenly afraid she might leave him? Whatever the reason for the awakening respect in his stance, it was apparent that things were going to be different, in a good way, from then on. Perhaps not perfect, but hopeful.
The film does well in bringing to life the variegated, intertwined conflicts going on in Zouina’s life: trying to fit into a new culture, having her support system stripped away, dealing with neighbors both hostile and friendly who don’t understand the world she comes from, the struggle between traditional ways and the emerging feminist movement (the story is set in the early Seventies).