In memory of his mother, Karim Aïnouz films his father’s discovery of Algeria

At the beginning the documentary almost resembles the holiday films, recognizable by the fluctuating shots. Karim Aïnouz, who narrates his journey and his feelings, skillfully orchestrates his absence on screen while his voice is omnipresent. Maybe because it’s not necessary to see it when the filmmaker bares his soul. The photos of his personal belongings in his hotel room are all traces of a presence that Aïnouz wants to push into the background. The main topic is this Algeria, which he is said to have discovered with his mother Iracema, a Brazilian from Fortaleza and a specialist in red algae.

In Mountain sailoreverything goes back to Iracema, Karim Aïnouz’s real interlocutor. He tells her about his arrival by sea, a solution he would not have chosen if she had accompanied him. Iracema is everywhere in the images, filmed at every age, in the photos and above all in her memory.

His father, the great absence from his life, also concerns Karim Aïnouz a lot. His parents’ American meeting earned him his existence, but the romance between Majid, “the progenitor”and Iracema is one of those love stories that ends badly.

An explosion of colors

Aïnouz’s film is a formally rich document because it combines filmed images and clichés and is just as dynamic as the first. On the canvas, the viewer can perceive the full virtuosity of the visual artist Karim Aïnouz. The filmmaker seems to have combined all the shades that can be given to an image. Sepia, black and white, saturated colors, monochrome shades like red, undoubtedly a reference to that algae that his mother studied and that transforms “Algiers, the white” into “Algiers, the red.” In terms of coloring and photography, everything is there to give the film a unique identity and make it a real visual experience.

Aïnouz even takes the time to indulge in a little fiction as he enacts a Kabyle legend told to him by his little cousin Inès, whom he met Taguemount Azouz, his father’s home village in Kabylia. A short story of local mythology is then written in red letters in Tifinagh (characters in which Kabyle is written).

The fever of absence

From this journey, which seems to have occupied him since he was eight years old, Karim Aïnouz manages to reconstruct a history of Algeria. That of a people who fought bloodily for their independence and whose youth, like his father, made the revolution their leitmotif. But also of a state that is now rich in oil revenues and yet struggles to give horizons to these young people, some of whom stare at the sea all day and dream of a hypothetical somewhere else.

Mountain sailor also resembles the story of daily life, that of men and women encountered on the street, going about their business accompanied by the sound of the sea or the cable car. During his wanderings, Karim Aïnouz met a butcher in his red decor, young people dancing at night or passing sometimes suspicious faces in cafes. All these people whose portraits shape his film made him feel like he was finally at home, where Aïnouz is no longer an unpronounceable name. But this appeasement seemed to be only temporary and did not spare him any form of calenture, that fever which sailors know well.

The leaf

Genre: documentary
Director: Karim Ainouz
Actor: Karim Ainouz
Pays: Brazil, France
Duration : 1h37
Mission: April 17, 2024
Dealer: Films from both sides