Documenting the Periphery: The Short Films of Faïza Guène

Pour rendre acceptable cette segmentation, l'imaginaire colonial est mobilisé et revitalisé afin de parcelliser la subjectivité des dominés.

(Bouamama, 75)

As François Niney has pointed out, "Entre les murs (2008) de Laurent Cantet, paradocumentaire joué par les intéressés reconstituant 'la réalité' d'une classe de collège" (11), served to underscore the complex ways in which fiction and reality were being documented today and how the division between filmic genres had become increasingly complicated by rapid technological innovation. Strictly speaking, "'(un) documentaire' se singularise pour ne plus désigner qu'un seul type de document, ou de documentation, visuel ou audiovisuel: un documentaire est alors un film (ou une vidéo) qui s'oppose à film de fiction, un peu comme l'essai au roman" (Niney, 15-16) and "La plupart des dictionnaires de la langue française comme des vocabulaires du cinéma tentent de définir le documentaire par deux traits principaux: son aspect didactique et son opposition à la fiction qui recouvrirait l'opposition entre réel et imaginaire" (Niney, 16). However, the indiscriminate recourse to such terms as "montrant des faits réels" and "renvoyant au réel" (Niney, 17) to designate events or features of all forms of film has served to further complicate the process of categorizing film productions. Given their specific objective of documenting the cultural, economic, political, and social realities of the banlieues, the short films by Faïza Guène that are under consideration here compel viewers to reflect simultaneously on the subjects explored and the effectiveness—and therefore the social function—of the camera itself as a tool. Relying as they do on diverse evidentiary modes, testimonies, and privileged ethnographic informers, "au-delà d'être des oeuvres de création, de fiction, les films sont des supports de compréhension d'une partie de la vie des adolescents de ma génération et de mon milieu social" (Faïza Guène, "Personal communication"), these films engage in a dialogue between the center and the periphery.

The French banlieues have received considerable attention—on the subject of religion and gender roles (Keaton 2006), comparative urban policies (Wacquant 1992 and 2006), ethnicity, race and class (Stovall 2003), social mobility (Fassin 2010), police repression (Le Cour Grandmaison 2009)—and we are today better-equipped thanks to these historical and sociological analyses to understand cultural and social dynamics in these urban spaces and also to identify reductive characterizations of these. However, as new generations of researchers have gained scholarly legitimacy as a result of extensive fieldwork in the banlieues, it remains of crucial importance to determine what can be gained by connecting these findings and observations with films and texts generated internally. Indeed, in his discussion of Beur authors (Azouz Begag, Farida Belghoul, Mehdi Charef, etc.), Alec Hargreaves demonstrated how they were "the first to write from within the immigrant community itself" (Immigration and identity, 4, emphasis added). Likewise, Beur cinema would also focus on analogous themes, most notably the question of bi-cultural upbringing, Islam in French society, immigrant politics, the parameters of Frenchness, the legacy of the Algerian war, family dynamics, colonial memory, and so on (see Dhoukar). Ultimately, these cultural practitioners provided a perspective on France that was not available elsewhere. The documentary component—albeit mediated via fiction—was integral to the genealogy of production, recording an aspect of French society that might not have otherwise been available.

The focus on sociological elements complicated the reception of literary works within a highly institutionalized literary establishment (Pascale Casanova has devoted a book-length study to this "république mondiale des lettres"), and Beur authors were often heavily criticized for this. Furthermore, the critiques these writers articulated against failed assimilationist and integrational measures and policies were also construed as calling into question accepted norms and attributes. As Ahmed Boubeker has argued,

Bien sûr, le combat peut sembler douteux face aux vigiles de la "vieille France" et ses assignations à demeure fantasmatiques, ses compulsions à la répétition qui réinventent l'étranger pour mieux refouler ses banlieues. Il n...