VERDICT: Two Levantine immigrants working in a Lyon café bond in this meditation on friendship and the long fingers of history which claimed the Berlinale Shorts top prize.
Two women from different parts of The Levant find themselves thrown together in a French café in Michelle and Noel Keserwany’s Les Chenilles, which was awarded the Golden Bear for Best Short Film in Berlin and became the festival’s candidate for the 2023 European Film Awards. The film’s narrative thrust – a tactile tale of a burgeoning female friendship and personal trauma – is entwined with a more abstract but striking meditation on historical exploitation and its echoes into the contemporary day. A blend of restrained drama, almost essayistic connections between past and present, and some creative flourishes, it’s a complex and energising film worthy of award.
The two women in question are Sarah (director, Noel Keserwany), who has recently moved to Lyon and Asma (Masa Zaher), who has lived there for several years already. “She’s a butterfly – she won’t last ten days,” claims Asma to one of their co-workers, seeing in Sarah and fragility that has followed her from the upheavals of her homeland. However, Sarah also understands the effect that Asma’s life has had on her – the walls she has built to protect herself and patiently goes about navigating them. When Asma is locked out of her apartment for the night, Sarah walks the streets with her and the threads that bind them knit evocatively together.
Threads also play a role in the historical analogues that both women observe regarding the effects that the silk road has had on their region and their lives. From the title translating to ‘caterpillars’ – in reference to the silkworms which were said to breed at the exact temperature found between a woman’s breasts – to exploitation of female workers who would never get to wear the silk they produced or the Levantine farmers whose crops were displaced by French silk merchants, various lines are drawn from the origins of the silk trade to the life circumstances of characters today. In one of her sections of narration, Asma observes that spider silk is arguably more suitable than that of the silkworm, but the former creature is untameable and latter naïve. She may be creating a parallel to the downtrodden female factory workers there, but as Sarah and Asma form their own personal union, it is their combined resilience which shines through: “The kind of friendships that could save a soul.”
Directors: Michelle Keserwany, Noel Keserwany
Cast: Masa Zaher, Noel Keserwany
Screenplay: Michelle Keserwany
Producer: Marine Vaillant
Cinematography: Karim Ghorayeb
Editing: Konstantin Bock
Music: Zeid Hamdan, Lynn Adib
Sound design: Cedric Kayem
Sound: Ugo Donias, Angele Keserwany
Production companies: Dewberries Films, La Biennale de Lyon (France)
Venue: Berlin Film Festival (Berlinale Shorts)
In Arabic, French
30 minutes
