Cinema
Le Clandestin
Benamar Bakhti · 1989
Synopsis
Without a regular trade and burdened with a large family, a man improvises himself as an unlicensed taxi driver. On the eve of Ramadan, a group of travellers who must get to Algiers can find no seats on the coaches: all are full, none stops. They come to ask for his services, he accepts while calculating his profit, the old car fills up, and each of them has a pressing reason to arrive.
Context
The public audiovisual production company produced these ninety-two minutes in Algerian Arabic, shot for the most part in an old car. Athmane Ariouet is at the wheel; Yahia Benmabrouk and Himoud Brahimi occupy the back seat, among travellers who have nothing in common. Everything takes place on the road that climbs from the high plateaux to the capital, in a country where the coach is no longer enough and where the passengers are in a hurry to arrive. The comedy arises from the characters and from the driver's haggling.
Who it is for
An hour and a half of comedy in Algerian Arabic, subtitled. You need to know that almost everything takes place in a car, and that the humour lies in the dialogue more than in the situations.
Prizes and reception
Honoured at Meknes in 1991 and then at Fespaco in 1993, it has remained one of the most rewatched comedies in the country, and its lines have been passed down through the generations.