Cinema
Omar Gatlato
Merzak Allouache · 1976
Synopsis
Omar, a minor clerk in the fraud department that inspects Algiers's jewellery shops, lives in a overcrowded flat in the Climat de France housing estate, in the heights of Bab El Oued. A braggart and yet shy, he is nicknamed Gatlato because his virility, it is said, is killing him. Passionate about chaabi and Indian music, which he records in cinemas, he one day receives from a friend a cassette on which a young woman, Selma, murmurs a few words. He falls in love with this unknown voice and sets out to meet the woman it belongs to.
Context
The first feature film of its author, produced by the national film office, it breaks with the didacticism of the Algerian cinema of the time: for the first time, a film from the country describes not colonisation or war but the daily life of young people who did not experience them. Omar addresses the camera as in a report. Smaïl Lakhdar-Hamina is responsible for the cinematography, Ahmed Malek for the music, Moufida Tlatli for the editing, and Boualem Bennani plays the title role. The nickname comes from the expression “gatlato er-radjla”.
Who it is for
A comedy running an hour and a half, in Algerian Arabic and French, in colour. It helps to know that the subject is slight and the tone that of a chronicle, with no strong plot.
Prizes and reception
Silver medal at the Moscow festival in 1977, selection for the Critics' Week at Cannes, prize at Karlovy Vary in 1978; regarded as the turning-point film of Algerian cinema.