Lila Says (2004) from Tuna

Lila Says is a second directorial effort from Ziad Doueiri (West Beyrouth), a coming of age story set in a Muslim ghetto in Marseilles. It focuses on Chimo (Mohammed Khouas), a 19 year old male. He feels trapped in his life, as do his three best friends. Unlike them, has a talent -- he can write. One of his teachers is prepared to get him a scholarship to a Paris school for promising writers, if he can write a book to submit. This movie is the story in that book as well as the story of writing it. It is, in fact, based on an anonymous and presumably autobiographical novel from someone who only identifies himself as "Chimo."

A local girl named Lila provides a subject for his book. She is 16, white, very blonde, and had been seen as aloof by Chimo's peers because she wouldn't give them the time of day. It turns out that she isn't aloof at all. Quite to the contrary. She approaches Chimo in a park one day, and offers to show him her pussy, and as they become acquainted, her talk remains mainly sexual in nature. For his part, Chimo is terribly smitten with this nymphet (Vahina Giocante) as was I, but he is not sure why she has chosen him for her flirtations, and is uncertain how to respond.

Chimo's peers are very jealous of the thought that Lila might actually like him, so they try to break up whatever might be going on, because they believe she is taking Chimo away from them, and because they would all like to bed Lila themselves. They go as far as accusing Lila of being a prostitute, or accusing her of only toying with Chimo because "he seems exotic" to her. At one point, they even hire a hooker (Barbara Chossis) to distract Chimo from his nymphet.

Meanwhile, Chimo's single mother also disapproves of the inter-racial relationship, although the closest the Lila and Chimo ever come to sexual contact is when Lila gives him a hand job while riding on her motor bike. Lila's family consists of a very strange aunt, who loves staring at her pussy, but is also deeply religious. At one point, Lila even tells her aunt that the devil appeared to her and made her give him head.

Eventually things go very wrong, and we learn the truth about Lila.

The film is so full of messages, it is hard to cover them all, but themes include the idea that you can rise above your position in life, that popular opinions are not always correct, and that sometimes your best friends can be the worst thing in your life. It is truly a coming-of-age story, in that Chimo ends up writing the story, escaping the ghetto, and gaining self-reliance. It is beautifully shot, and superbly acted, and I, like Chimo, was totally captivated by Giocante's Lila, and didn't even notice that I had spent two hours reading English subtitles.