Loubia Hamra (Bloody Beans). 2013. Algeria/France. Directed by Narimane Mari. Score by Zombie Zombie. In French, Arabic; English subtitles. 77 min.
Narimane Mari’s first feature follows a group of children whose beachside antics turn into a surreal restaging of the Algerian War of Independence. Fed up with their humiliating diet of the titular beans, they decide to rob a colonial barracks, abducting a French solider along the way, and ultimately embark on a hallucinatory journey deep into the night. Mari worked with 20-odd pre-teens from the Bab el Oued district of Algiers on this exhilarating collective performance, which encapsulates the capacity for play and boundless imagination in Mari’s own vision of filmmaking. While Bloody Beans was made on the heels of the 50th anniversary of Algerian independence, its youthful non-actors are also a reminder that the past cannot fully be separated from the present; beneath their boisterous role play are traces of a contemporary generation’s experience of disenfranchisement.