Yes

Colour, 35 mm
United Kingdom, 2004, 100 min
Section: Horizons

Synopsis

This story of a passionate love affair between a married American woman and a Middle Eastern man reflects some of the middle generation’s most pressing conflicts regarding religion, politics and sex. She is a molecular biologist who, although raised in the United States, realizes over time how important her Irish roots have become to her. The pragmatic round of her life (scientific conferences, business trips, lectures) is becoming ever more alienating. He – the man she falls in love with – is a Lebanese immigrant, a doctor trying to get work in London as a cook. The heroine’s deceived British husband, a politician who evinces far too little understanding for his wife’s emotional searchings, plays a key role in a narrative which is both a story of passion and of the suffering of the divided world. In another subtle film study, Sally Potter has again concentrated on the female experience of a world that says yes to true feelings in defiance of various taboos, strictures and obstacles.

About the director

Sally Potter (b. 1949, London), one of the world’s top directors, left school at age 16 in order to become a filmmaker. In the seventies she studied professional dance and choreography at the London School of Contemporary Dance and later founded her own troupe, The Limited Dance Company. She gained recognition as a theatre director and as a singer-songwriter as well (she has been a member of several bands). Running parallel to her music activities, her movie career started with experimental shorts (e.g. the cult film Thriller, 1979). She debuted in features with The Gold Diggers (1983). Other films: The London Story (1986, short), a highly awarded adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando (1992; 1993 European Film Award (Felix), two Oscar nominations), The Tango Lesson (1997; screened in the Horizons section at Karlovy Vary in 1998), and The Man Who Cried (2000).