25/05/2023 - CANNES 2023: Elias Belkeddar’s candidate for the weirdest movie at the festival is, ultimately, a really tender love story

How did Omar the Strawberry become, ahem, Omar the Strawberry? Who knows. The theories are many and varied because the man in question is the gangster everyone fears, the icon to all the sinners with sticky fingers. But even icons get caught, or sentenced – to 20 years, actually, at least in France. But there is a way out for Omar. Given his roots, if he stays in Algiers and learns to be discreet, he will be just fine. He can even bring his best buddy, Roger.

Elias Belkeddar’s odd, surprisingly sweet movie The King of Algiers [+see also:
trailer
interview: Elias Belkeddar
film profile] – shown at Cannes as one of the Midnight Screenings, despite not being overly explicit – is really a love story. But not a love story between Omar and Samia, a lovely, no-bullshit lady he meets at a pastry factory, where fallen gangsters apparently end up. The real deal is the connection, the friendship, the love between fifty-something Omar and Roger, played by Reda Kateb and Benoît Magimel, respectively. They are friends who stay together in good times and bad – especially the very, very bad. Still, there are no complaints, because it’s just what you do. And then you talk about what to eat.

These two actors seem to be having a ball. Kateb looks like a particularly confused Vincent Vega, while Magimel embraces domesticity in their massive villa (it’s funny that he seems to be cooking in just about every one of his films at Cannes, also in The Pot-au-Feu [+see also:
film review
film profile]). Whenever they are together, doing nothing, feeling melancholic, it’s a blast. Which sadly also means that the introduction of an undercooked romance with Meriem Amiar’s Samia backfires. Omar doesn’t really need another romantic interest – in a way, albeit strictly a platonic one, he already has one.

Belkeddar is a relative newcomer as a director – he previously co-wrote Athena [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Romain Gavras
film profile] – but he is impressively effective: this is one well-made film. He also manages to create an entire universe here, showing Algiers from just about every angle. He has an affection for the community, clearly, but he is still interested mostly in hustlers. Just about everyone he portrays is violent or cheats in one way or another, and you almost don’t mind.

It’s an important addition, this sense of place. Thanks to this, his film never feels like another carbon copy of gangster movies, the kind every boy has wanted to make ever since they discovered Guy Ritchie. The King of Algiers doesn’t seduce with some complex storyline; it seduces with its atmosphere, with weird humour, with Magimel’s dance moves. And with this duo of psychotic runaways who pick a fight for no reason, and then stuff their faces with pastries.

The King of Algiers was produced by France’s Iconoclast Films, Chi-Fou-Mi Productions and 2Horloges Production, and was co-produced by StudioCanal and France 2 Cinéma. Its international sales have been entrusted to StudioCanal.