Like the three bundles of hair that form a braid, the stories of the three women in this third feature film by filmmaker, writer and actress Laetitia Colombani are intertwined and connected. Their realities are fundamentally different, their problems also have nothing in common, yet all are examples of resilience, feminine strength and this need to emancipate themselves from the legacies to which they are subscribed.
The exercise of bringing to the screen this story that she wrote herself (and which was published in 2017) necessarily seemed arduous. Like the movie Babel (2006) by Alejandro González Iñárritu, The braid draws its strength from the multiplicity of narrative threads, but also from the links woven between each of them. It was imperative, in the feature film, that we never get lost when moving from one story to another, that we never tire of one story compared to another and that the moment when all the lives are linked either organically. In this superb script that she signs with Sarah Kaminsky, Laetitia Colombani manages to ensure that we are at the same time entertained, touched, educated and captivated by her film. His camera is very close to his female characters, whose psyche we discover through their actions and in their looks.
Visual worlds have a particular touch in each country. We feel the heat of India in the image, we imagine the salt of the sea in the air in Italy and the cold of the city, in Montreal, also affects the duller tone of the scenes in Canada. To better differentiate his paintings, to better immerse spectators in the worlds of his protagonists, Colombani did not hesitate to divide his approach into three, without however causing too much discord.
Kim Raver (24 hours flat, New York 911), who plays Sarah, is the best known of the three main actresses in the film. It was wanted. We weren’t looking for a headliner who would capture all the attention, but rather three women who know how to carry within themselves these moving roles of strong women that the world seeks to weaken. Mission accomplished, the trio Kim Raver, Fotinì Peluso and Mia Maelzer are fantastic to watch. They are Sarah, Giulia and Smita, have battles to fight and a linked destiny.
More than 5 million readers worldwide have read The braid, which has been translated into dozens of languages. The challenge of bringing it to the screen was huge. Expectations were high. The feature film fulfills its mandate very well.
Drama
The braid
Laetitia Colombani
With Kim Raver, Fotinì Peluso and Mia Maelzer
2 hours
Indoors