I started watching this with the thought that it'd be a basic romance with a happy ending. I didn't expect such great acting, storytelling, music, pictures. Everything combines very well in the movie and it makes you remember about it even after years. It doesn't completely follow the idea of the book, that the love between Jonas and Emilie is actually a political metaphor for the history of France and Algeria, but for a romance, it is perfect. I loved how the director took time to picture the cruelty of the war and the unfair world, side by side with the sad love story between the main characters. A story that is, to some extent, more about honour, respect and dignity than love. Even though it teaches you that true love stays with you forever, never dies and never is forgotten, no matter if it has a happy ending or not.
Plot summary
Algeria, the 1930s. Younes is nine years old when he is put in his uncle's care in Oran. Rebaptized Jonas, he grows up among the Rio Salado youths, with whom he becomes friends. Emilie is one of the gang; everyone is in love with her. A great love story develops between Jonas and Emilie, which is soon unsettled by the conflicts troubling the country.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
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Simply a masterpiece
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A beautiful story
In a nutshell it's a romance in the context of the algerian liberation war, it's beautiful and sad in the same time
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Extraordinary romance movie. A Masterpiece.
The story is good, the storyline is very interesting. The plot at the end was very unexpected when I found out that Jonas did not move on from Emilie.