Le ravissement

After throwing out her boyfriend because of an affair, Lydia (Hafsia Herzi) keeps going as if nothing ever happened: she carries out her work as a midwife with the same commitment and conscience as always. She doesn’t show just how shaken she is. But when Milos, the bus driver who she spends a night with, wants nothing to do with her afterwards and her best friend Salomé, her only support in life, becomes a mother, she is knocked truly sideways. Her yearning for another life leads her to spend a lot of time with the baby and get caught up in web of ever more momentous lies. This subtle character study, which doubles up as an interrogation of motherhood and family, eschews judgement and definitive analysis. In voiceover, Milos tells her story in retrospect as the narrator. His perspective is one possible one, but the mystery surrounding Lydia is never fully solved. (bik)