YES

Star Review

YES is Potter’s response to both the demonisation of the Arabic world and the surge of hatred aimed at America that followed the attacks of September 11, 2001. She asked herself, ‘what can a filmmaker do in such an atmosphere of hate and fear? What are the stories that need to be told?’

Her story is of a passionate affair between an American scientist and a middle Eastern chef, a story that gained in pertinence when the invasion of Iraq took place at the beginning of rehearsals. The characters have no names; simply She and He.

One of the characteristics most people know about the film before watching–that it is spoken entirely in rhyming verse–is also one of its least noticeable aspects, other than the fact that we are aware of being in the hands of an uncommonly intelligent, literate script that sometimes feels like a play, and in which the role of the omniscient chorus is taken by cleaners in the various houses and institutions in the film. The natural feel of the language is deliberate. Potter says that she attempted ‘to find the recognisable music of everyday speech’ and in rehearsal told the actors to ‘ignore the rhyme, ignore the form, just concentrate on the sense and the emotion’, which the actors do admirably.

More readily apparent is the refinement in the film’s visual conception and framing. Characters are always seen in settings which confirm and complement their stories and fill in a background that informs the central relationship: the ribald chat of the restaurant kitchen for He, the spacious house, empty of meaningful ornament, shared with her husband for She.

This is a necessary examination of a modern crisis with ancient language. Yet if language is at the heart of the characters’ desire, it is also at the centre of their misunderstandings, and the film makes plain just how the present geo-political situation imposes itself between people in intimate relationships, turning individuals into ideas or even enemies. One of the most moving moments occurs when She is at work, overtaken by reverie of the previous night’s lovemaking. Looking through her microscope she sees a scene of jostling, interpenetrating cells, a moment before language divides people in love and resentment. Later, during the disagreement that touches the core of their questions of identity, She says the three small words that are probably the most important and helpful words that could be said in the present world of unrecognised and competing identities; not ‘I love you’, but ‘I hear you’.

Graeme Hobbs on 13th December 2005

View all 228 of Graeme Hobbs’s reviews

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Film Description

Potter started writing her story of a passionate love affair between an American woman and a Lebanese man as a response to the demonisation of the Arabic world as well as the parallel wave of hatred against America post 9/11. In their relationship they confront some of the major conflicts of our generation - religious, political and sexual. Drawing on poetic tradition Potter delivers a mixture of intellectual speculation and eroticism that is also written entirely in verse.

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DVD Extras

• Two making-of featurettes: 'Finding Scene 54' and 'The End'
• trailers.

Film Details

Cast

Joan Allen, Sam Neill, Simon Abkarian

Technical Details