Desperate and
dirty-minded

Lila Says blurs the line between adolescent
sexual fantasy and reality complex
doc about life in senior year

by MATTHEW HAYS

Films about youthful lust are common, but in the North American context, they are usually dreadful comedies about outcasts who ultimately and victoriously get laid anyway. Lila Says is different, an unusual French-produced entry from Lebanese filmmaker Ziad Doueiri, translated from the celebrated 1996 novel.

Set in Marseilles, the film has a horny young 19-year-old (Mohammed Khouas) roving about town with his buddies, who are similarly randy and with scant opportunity. Those looking for earnest writing would do best to look elsewhere; as Khouas bluntly states in voiceover early in the film, “This chick could start a fucking jihad.” And then, “If I had to choose between liberating Palestine and pussy, I’d take pussy.”

But Khouas is decidedly out of step with his buddies, who leer and taunt the hot women they spot on the street. Khouas encounters Lila (Vahina Giocante), a blonde lass who is very, very sexually curious. When she first meets him, she mounts a swing and begins swinging, legs spread, eager to flash her most private of parts for him. His buddies don’t know that he has this special bond with Lila, and they eagerly taunt her. The gang visit an Asian prostitute they demean, calling her “Egg roll,” and then call Khouas a fag because he won’t have sex with her.

The film then continues with sporadic scenes of Lila going out of her way to titillate Khouas, discussing her sexual fantasies, which include getting gang-banged. At first glance, this appears to simply be the wet dream of the screenwriter and director, smeared onto the big screen. But an interesting stylistic tension sets in as the film unreels. Khouas must decipher, as must the audience, if Lila is seriously intent on playing out the sexual scenarios she’s articulating, or is she just talking dirty?

Lila Says doesn’t contain too many surprises, but I appreciated the way the film played with the porn fantasies and the way they encroach on reality. The film emerges as an open text—it could be interpreted as another misogynist romp, or a clever dissection of one, depending on your perspective.

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