LILA SAYS (Lila dit ca) Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Samuel Goldwyn Films
Grade: B
Directed by: Ziad Doueiri
Written by: Ziad Doueiri, book by Chimo
Cast: Vahina Giocante, Mohammed Khouas, Karim Ben
Haddou, Edmonde Franchi
Screened at: Review 2, NYC, 5/25/05 If you look at the area of Marseilles that intrigues Ziad Doueiri's
camera, you'd see that the streets are the sort that would excite
American tourists, who'd call them "quaint," "charming," "not like
anything we see at home" and "so European." For the locals,
however, these are mean streets that provide housing for the
poor, almost all Arabs, though at least one French family is
living in the center of the mostly Muslim ghetto. The locals hang
their wash on outdoor clotheslines–another scene that would
tempt American shutterbugs doubtless to the dismay of the
locals. Doueriri, whose previous film exploration, "West Beirut,"
dealt with the civil war that broke out in 1975 in Lebanon's
capital city, is concerned more with the geography of adolescent
minds than with the topography of the neighborhood. The titled Lila (Vahina Giocante) is a sixteen-year-old French
girl with angelic blond hair, the sort of person any red-blooded
male on any continent would call "hot" even before hearing her
seductive chatter. While some of her neighbors consider her a
slut, noting the provocative way she rides her motorbike around
town with her short skirt waving in the wind, she flirts only with
the shy Chimo (Mohammed Khouas), a fellow who has three
Arab pals but who has far more class than any of them. Chimo
shows promise as a writer. Her teacher tells him so and
suggests that he submit a 30-page story to a committee in Paris
for a chance to win an all-expenses-paid scholarship. A product
of the ghetto, however, Chimo hesitates to break way from what
he knows, but "Lila Says," or "Lila dit ca" in the French, is a
visual presentation of his writing. (The film has English
subtitles.) While Lila shows her butt to the hesitant Chelmo and does even
more with him when the two are riding together on her
moped–in the most electric scene in the film but in no way a
sample of soft porn–we see her as a woman whose only
difference from many other girls her age is that she acts out her
fantasies in a flowery, unending display of sensual talk. She
regales Chimo with stories of her alleged sexual escapades,
explaining to the lad what sorts of sensual encounters she
favors, and we wonder why Chimo–unlike his three boorish
friends who you just know have rape on their minds–does not
make a pass at her, particularly when she actively stalks him as
he makes the rounds of the town. Doueiri makes good use of secondary characters, such as Lila's
superstitious caretaker aunt (Edmonde Franchi) who fears that
her angel will leave her and move out, and Chimo's single mom
(Carmen Lebbos), who encourages her boy to take advantage
of a potential scholarship, ultimately experimenting with her hair
in her attempt to attract male attention. The intriguing story is universal. In America's so-called inner-
cities, a pathology exists in which poor teens, perhaps attending
school, maybe dropping out, see no future for themselves and
allow their lives to pass them by as they hang out with one
another day after day. But ideas take a back seat to a visceral
display of frank, sexual talk by Lila, an adolescent whose raging
hormones encourage her to explore her power not with men in
general but with the one person she loves for his retiring
sensibility. Not Rated. 89 minutes © 2005 by Harvey Karten
harveycritic@cs.com | 
