Loin (2001)
Directed by André Téchiné

Film Review

For its director, André Téchiné, Loin represents something of a departure from his earlier work, eschewing the ponderous, almost morbid stylisation of such films as Les Voleurs (1996) and Alice et Martin (1998) for a more satisfying blend of wistful poetry and hard-edged realism.  With its striking visual presentation, the film makes the most of its North African setting, vividly captured on digital camera, to the extent that the exotic location becomes a crucial player in the drama, richly evocative of the aching sense of dislocation that preys on the central protagonist throughout.  Eerily counterpointing the sun-drenched location photography, there is a worrying sense of vulnerability and  hidden danger, which grows imperceptibly as the story unfolds.

All of the three leads actors (Stéphane Rideau, Mohamed Hamaidi and Lubna Azabal) bring a harrowing sense of depth and reality to their incredibly nuanced performances, but it is the haunting poetry of the photography that makes the deepest impression and carries so much of the film's underlying tension and drama.  Loin is a  film about the pain of separation - from one's homeland, one's beloved, perhaps also one's dreams - and this Téchiné richly evokes through a simple modern fable set in an unfamiliar landscape that is both seductive and menacing.

Loin touches on some highly topical subjects - drugs trafficking, people smuggling, economic exploitation - but only to provide a credible context within which to anchor the narrative.  It avoids the kind of polemical posturing that a less experienced filmmaker might have gone for and for the most part the film concentrates on the fragile human relationships that guide the narrative across familiar Téchiné territory.  The inability for coupled individuals to rise above their own egoistical needs and fully connect with the other in their relationship is a recurrent theme in the director's oeuvre, and in Loin, his best film to date, he offers us his most authentic, most heartfelt take on this signature subject.

Film Synopsis

Serge is a young man in his mid-twenties who works as a long-distance lorry driver.  His work consists of shipping rolls of fabric to Morocco and then collecting clothes manufactured in this country, which he drives back to Europe.  It is a demanding job and Serge takes advantage of the time it gives him for reflection about his life and his future prospects.  It also gives him a chance to stop over in Tangier, where he plans to hook up with his former girlfriend Sarah, a Moroccan Jew.  Since the recent death of her mother, Sarah has refused to have anything more to do with Serge and has hopes of emigrating to Canada to live with her brother.

Undeterred, the young lorry driver returns to Sarah's home city, hoping they can patch up their differences and resume their relationship.  He has three days in Tangier, time enough he reckons to win back the girl her loves.  During this time, he agrees to get mixed up in drugs trafficking, heedless of the risks he is running by concealing narcotics in his lorry.  He then enlists the help of a young Arab named Saïd to arrange a meeting with Sarah.  Saïd agrees to assist Serge, but only if he promises to smuggle him into Europe on his return journey...