You Promised Me The Sea Review: BFI Flare Festival 2024

You Promised Me The Sea (L’air de la mer rend libre) explores an arranged marriage between a closeted gay man and his unknowing wife in Northern France

Said, a French 20-something of North African descent is out at all hours smoking, drinking and causing no end of problems to his busybody family who are desperate to see him married off and starting a family of his own. As it’s become clear he’s not going to grow up and get serious of his own volition, his mother arranges a marriage for him – setting him up with Hadjira, the daughter of an old friend.

The wedding day doesn’t exactly go smoothly, with Said turning up drunk and then running off to declare his love to his secret boyfriend, jazz musician Vincent. Desperate to be seen as a good son, Said tries to convince Vincent to keep seeing him in secret while he pretends to be straight for his image conscious families sake. But when the other man refuses, Said returns to the wedding venue and enters into a marriage that clearly isn’t going to make him happy.

Hadjira for her part isn’t particularly interested in this marriage either, but seems to be punishing herself for a past indescretion. She’s served time in prison after falling in love with a drug dealer and taking the rap for him. Hadjira is now determined to make amends for her previous relationship by doing whatever her mother tells her to – namely marrying a good man, being a good wife and starting a family. She is clueless as to Said’s true romantic interests, and married life quickly becomes a cage for these two young people who’ve been thrown together.

You Promised Me The Sea is the sixth feature from French-Algerian filmmaker Nadir Moknèche, who sought to shine a light on the experiences of gay arab men in modern day France, many of whom still face stigma within their own community and wider society. At a post screening Q&A at the BFI London Flare Festival Moknèche told the audience he’d had many young actors come up to him during the casting process telling him ”Said is me, this is my story,” but that they could not be in the film because their families would not approve.

Despite it’s potential for a very sad story You Promised Me The Sea handles it’s serious subject matter with a pleasing lightness, injecting just enough humour at the ridiculous situations these characters sometimes find themselves in to stop the whole thing from falling in to despair. It’s simply told and unobtrusively shot, feeling at times reminiscent of a Richard Linklater film.

Moknèche avoids casting any particular judgement on his characters or how they have come to find themselves in this situation – none of the families are overtly religious or traditional; they’re well established, middle class people who have been integrated into French society for several generations – and yet somehow Said is still at a place where he cannot be openly gay. These barriers and restrictions still exist even if no one necessarily believes in the dogma that put them there in the first place.

It all builds to a lovely conclusion which Moknèche has said he thinks turns out far nicer than this situation would really play out in real life – but I couldn’t help but be riled at the lack of resolution for Hadjira’s character. After being gaslit, belittled and insulted by everyone around her for pretty much the film’s whole run time I did rather hope she’d get her vengeance somehow, but she just doesn’t get the character development to be her own person.

There’s a positive overarching message in You Promised Me The Sea that ‘the truth will set you free,’ and even if it does come to an unrealistically easy ending there’s no doubt that it’s the ending that audiences would wish to see. Flimsy but not without fun, this is a decent drama from director Moknèche who provides caring and carefully considered insight into an underrepresented community.

You Promised Me The Sea screened as part of the BFI Flare Film Festival. Global release details have yet to be confirmed