Lila Says (2005)

An Exercise In Nonsense

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

This terrific little coming-of-age movie came out in 2004 and, despite a modicum of success on the festival circuit, seems to have disappeared without trace. It's the story of a handsome young Muslim teenage, Chimo. (Moa Khouas, excellent), and his infatuation with the beautiful blonde Lila, (Vahina Giocante, a natural). You could say it's very much a wish-fulfillment movie since Lila is the girl of every boy's dreams and is, apparently, up for grabs. The setting is the Arab quarter of Marseilles so there is a political element to the film, too, though the randy and ultimately violent youths on display could come from any city anywhere.The Lebanese director, Ziad Doueiri, had already worked in Hollywood for Tarantino before returning to Europe where he made "West Beirut". This, his second film, really should have catapulted him into the big-time yet it was eight years before he directed again. Even if his career never really develops "Lila Says" will have earned him his footnote in film history.

A young woman moves into an Arab community in France and is drawn to a young man who dreams of becoming a writer. What does Lila say? Lila talks a lot, but she doesn't really say anything. Just about all she does is talk dirty to the Arab boy. She practically begs him to have at her, but he's too timid to make a move. It is not clear why the slutty, blonde-haired Lila has moved into the neighborhood when she's not Arabic. Her behavior is also unexplained. Why does she invite a stranger to peak under her dress? And what type of twisted relationship does she have with the aunt with whom she lives? There are no clues given because the filmmakers are clueless.

Not to give too much away, but Lila Says is the story of a relationship between a man and a girl in a Arabian community in France. She is sexually aggressive towards one man, Chimo, in her neighborhood whom she sees as a better man than the other gangsters and men who hit on her. She starts baiting him with ideas of her sexuality in graphic detail to him. In every encounter with her, though, he cannot say the words which spring to his mind since he has never felt this way about a girl like her before. He is continually harassed by his friends to partake in good times with them, but he turns them down due to the newfound spark in his soul which is Lila. When the friends get sick of his head-over-heels-in-love attitude, they start to treat her like the sexually adventurous girl which she proclaimed to be (only to Chimo) and assault her, only to reveal a truly personal secret of hers all along...I was dumbfounded by the end at how sad I was for her when all along I thought I had her pinned as the image she portrayed. From the beginning, when she says "Do you wanna see my p*ssy?", I thought, "OK, here we go. Another Skin-o-max French film about screwing around." But the real tie between Lila and Chimo is what keeps you watching this one. You feel the love that they share on some other plane and keep wondering about her aunt and their relationship and how Chimo is going to end up.I would recommend it to anyone who likes deep relationship stories and movies. It has a charm about it like City of God or Lost in Translation. It also delves into a culture all its own in this Arab part of France. I love the real-life struggle that the police get from the Arab man in his car, and some comment about how he didn't blow up any buildings, or something to that effect...good social commentary from the other side of the spectrum for people here in the U.S.I gave it a 7 star rating. Definitely above average twist yet pulls back from being an epic film by simply stating things which may be true without getting too out of control with meaning or existentialism or anything else. Very good, go rent it today.

In its desperate attempt at sensuality, Doueiri's "Lila Says" fails to arouse and excite, and instead careens out of control in a churning, over-acted mess. Starting out as a coming-of-age tale about a young adult, Chimo, the movie shows some promise. That is, until Lila arrives, offering to show her 'chatte' to Chimo on the occasion of their first meeting. Lila is a poster child for childhood sexual abuse, angrily taunting her aunt with her genitals, weaving tales of fantastic encounters with devils, and doing her best to convince Chimo to join her homemade orgy/porn project-- all the while keeping actual sexual encounters at arm's (or in Chimo's case, hand's) length.It's hard to see what Doueiri intends with Lila-- she never develops as a character, never becomes more compelling, and never inspires more than passing interest from the audience. Chimo's story is much more moving, but even that sputters out halfway through the film, around the time when we discover that he's been donating blood to keep himself in beer and cigarettes. So much for his plan to resist assimilation into French culture. But really, it doesn't make any difference, because there's nothing and nobody to care about in this film. Even the tragedy that befalls Lila is disturbing and horrible, but never really heart-rending. There are at least a hundred kernels of ideas here that would make great movies: Marseille-as-hotbed of French-Arab tension, the struggles of a poor writer wannabe, the damage done by sexually predatory guardians, sons reliving their fathers' romantic mistakes, etc. It's just a shame that Douieri tried to tackle them all at once, and in the process, succeeded at almost nothing.