ALIÉNATIONS

Aliénations is certainly not a film of the spectacular kind. The images unfold calmly, edited according to the material gathered which mostly consists of scenes of consultation between hospital staff and their patients. Here, the word rules and must ring loud enough in the audiences ear to make us perceive the extraordinary mental imbroglio affecting a considerable portion of the population of contemporary Algeria. The game of political fantasies of all sorts overlays that of archaic dreams instilled by the djinn, in a confusion which the surrounding social violence and the pressure of modern times hardly improve. The sequences constitute a welcome collective portrait.