\n
![\"divinesquinzaine\"](\"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/divinesQuinzaine-325x163.jpg\")
<\/p>\nReviewed by Hassan Kandil. Viewed at AFI Fest 2016.
\n<\/p>\n
Divines<\/em> is the first screening for Director Houda Benyamina. Although her first, Benyamina was able to create a genre of her own. The movie would definitely be seen by its nature\u00a0as a rare singularity. Filming the movie, Benyamina was keen to show\u00a0the unprecedented, harsh, but somehow amusing reality her characters are forced to face. Benyamina used both exceptional and unconventional cinematography to produce a movie audiences would feel is novel and unique. The director develops\u00a0strong irregular\u00a0scenes which eventually build up to highlight the characters conflict\u00a0in order to reach success and escape a life of poverty and injustice. In Divine, the main character – Dounia – is a teenage girl born to a flawed mother in a harshly crude environment of a Paris suburb. In an attempt to elude the poor life she was born to, Dounia alongside her best friend start on a journey they think would bring\u00a0their suffering to an end. Inheriting a life of danger, Dounia is an adventurous, though\u00a0reckless tomboy who finds her way to become a street dealer, one of the only careers\u00a0she’s known.\u00a0Through Benjamina’s vision and the main character’s talent, the movie successfully guides audiences using the eyes of Dounia; to witness her become a woman, find her first love, and\u00a0share\u00a0her emotions of sorrow, anger, happiness, and laughter. Not just was Benyamina\u00a0able to capture these critical emotional and psychological fundamentals, she was also capable of capturing the social and political elements which clash\u00a0with impoverished suburban communities on a daily basis. By utilizing these elements the director is able to portray the characters’\u00a0morals,values, and highest hopes. Benjamina also made sure to reveal the characters’ innocence all throughout the chaos, and prove\u00a0that even the most solid individuals are vulnerable. Explicitly this is a story about survival,struggle, and the pursuit of happiness in whatever form it may present itself, implicitly it is merely a story about friendship and love. A – must watch – true tale of French hustle.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Reviewed by Hassan Kandil. Viewed at AFI Fest 2016. Divines is the first screening for Director Houda Benyamina. Although her first, Benyamina was able to create a genre of her own. The movie would definitely be seen by its nature\u00a0as a rare singularity. Filming the movie, Benyamina was keen to show\u00a0the unprecedented, harsh, but somehow […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[289,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afi-filmfest-2016","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/111405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37030\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}