This film, although pleasant enough seems to start at a really slow pace. One may find themselves wondering when it will manage to get to its 'point' as it were. The film shows the harmony between a community of Muslims, Jews and Christians in a small town in Tunisia. A Summer in Gaulette manages to nicely give a sense of community that transcends religious barriers, focusing on Youssef (muslim), Giuseppe (catholic), Jojo (jewish)and their three daughters. Their acceptance of the other religions around them are put to the test when their daughters are found to be interested in boys from other religious backgrounds. It manages to make us question how tolerant we really are, and the strength of friendship when fundamental beliefs are tested. In light of this film's rather heavy undertone Boughedir still manages to add elements of comedy and a rite of passage aspect in regard to the daughters. In spite of the comedy at the very end of the film a tragic and rather sobering fact is introduced. As their 'tolerant'microcosm will face its biggest threat from the world outside. Youssef, Jojo and Giuseppe's friendship faces their biggest test yet.

This film wistfully evokes the memories of a bygone time and place in a seaside quarter of French Tunisia. For a brief period after World War II the population of French Jews, Italian Christians and Arab muslims appeared to coexist in a cohesive society that had formed over a hundred years. In this setting 3 young female friends (one from each aforementioned segment of society) make a pact to "lose it" by the end of the summer. However, on the eve of Tunisian Independence from France and the ramifications of living in a Muslim Arab country as opposed to a secular "Western" colony, each citizen is forced to look at the reality of their place in society. The film goes out of its way to show that everyone is the same deep down; that there are basic needs, desires and short-comings that define all humans. This, coupled with the fact that the citizenry seem to describe La Goulette as "paradise" (it was far from it...I know this first hand) simply make this film come off as the fanciful reminiscing of an old man talking about a "lost time and place" which actually never existed. Mediocre acting, but great cinematography.

When we're told at the end that the Arab-Israeli war started a day after the film's last scene, the transience of what we've been watching is underlined - we realize (if we haven't already) that the summer of the title is a figurative as well as a literal setting. The film is in part a largely timeless evocation of eroticism, incident and youthful entanglements, but with a highly specific undertone of racial bickering - it's a melting pot of religious and ethnic allegiances which seems in danger of blowing (the main confrontations here revolving around sex). As so often, it's mainly the men who perpetrate the worst excesses of tribalism, with the women more conciliatory, more progressive (the film sums up the tensions impinging on the younger women through its discussion, later implemented, of going naked under the veil - adhering to tradition while eroticizing, indeed scandalizing it). Despite these challenging elements, it's an episodic, easygoing film, with a languid, glistening sexiness that sometimes has a distinctly dangerous charge; in the end though it fades away rather, despite the political underlining of the closing caption.