A daring celebration of taking up space in places you’ve been told you didn’t belong, “Eve” is a legend that delights audiences with a tender heart, fierce spirit, and sense of humor. These adjectives also define the honorary heroine of Mamouna Doukuri’s brilliant second year feature, which was co-written by Doukuri, Alain-Michel Blanc, Zangru, and David Elkayem. Eve is sensitive and brave at the same time as she roams the streets of Paris on a life-defining mission with her dependable motorbike and Afro-blond, seeing the world through her Coca-Cola glasses as she gets help and goodwill from a procession of strangers.
Don’t be alarmed by the crowded book collection here—although there are several cooks in the kitchen, “Eve,” under Doukurie’s direction, is conceived as coherently and tightly organized as the films come. You may remember the talented Doukuri’s name and recognize her style from her debut “Cuties,” the award-winning 2020 Sundance Film Festival whose fate was overshadowed by the unfair and misleading controversy that erupted around her later that year. In her equally confident second film, the defiant Dokuri puts the same strong core at the core of her previous film, one that recognizes the complex emptiness of weary contemporary youngsters and divides the difference between a touch of magical realism and social drama.
The senseless young woman Eve – a person who has neither time for pity nor thoughtless gossip – is depicted by Sania Halifa (the first time the director discovered through voice communication) with remarkable brilliance and vivid originality. The resourceful, lonely orphan lives with her terminally ill grandmother Maminata (famous Malian singer Omo Sangari, a charming on-screen presence with her powerful voice and gorgeous traditional dresses) and works at a local grocery store to make ends meet. The duo are looking for a suitable adoptive home for their unique child. While she is often bullied for her distinctive appearance and white skin, Eve has proven to be no easy task for anyone – determined to stand up to anyone who dares to mess with her, she resists with dignity, defeating the vile owners around her. A little help from her shy boyfriend Erwan (Tetouan Gerber).
With this resolute act, Eve decided to take matters relating to her future upon herself. Resented by a list of potential adopters, all in line to give her a home after her grandmother’s death, she concluded that there would only be one person in the world to trust as her new father: the former first lady of America, Michelle Obama. After all, doesn’t she already have enough empty space in her big house, since her mature daughters no longer live at home? Erawan agrees that Eve is always taken by her, since before our eyes he has become a typical compassionate friend, so few of us in the real world have been lucky enough to have support.
Powered by the graceful lens of DP Antoine Sanier—which pulls on a number of truly intricate and deceptive urban pieces—and the murky cues of the musical score by Erwan Chandon and Nico Noki, Doucoure enthusiastically follows in and around Paris as a young girl desperately trying to cross paths with Michelle Obama, who just so happens to be in town on tour. about the book. Throughout her increasingly eventful life, we watch Hawa Muscle make her way into the bowels of a high-profile concert by French singer Yseult (playing herself), infiltrate a children’s hospital to offer Michelle a heartfelt adoption playground, to face security, VIPs at exclusive parties, they get astronaut support Famous Thomas Bisquet (playing himself) ends up in the baggage department at the chaotic Charles de Gaulle Airport during the film’s climax. That last trip would be out of reach even in a pre-9/11 world. But Doukurie depicts the incident, and so brilliantly edited by Nicholas Dessumson, with such a gentle determination that you can’t help but buy the prospect that a stubborn child will end up next to Obama’s private jet, unaided and unharmed.
All the while, Doukuri makes good use of Hawa’s thick set of glasses to manipulate her sometimes blurred vision, doing so both physically and figuratively in service of her contemporary fairy tale of a rebellious soul searching for its place in the world. Once this place comes into sharp focus, the uplifting emotional impact that Doucouré seizes unobtrusively is simply stunning.
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