Farsan

After Jalla, Jalla and Kopps I knew to a certain degree what to expect. Nevertheless I was pleasantly surprised. This certainly is a Scandinavian movie, with all the little quirks and subtleties. And I found myself smiling almost throughout. All the cheap cuts and clichés were playfully dodged, and I was left with a pervasive joy over the little things in life. I was afraid that this was yet another movie about cultural differences, with token minorities. Luckily this was not the case at all, and all the characters were lovable and real. The film takes serious issues like tradition, relationships and friendship, and just "whips them around" in unexpected ways. Without resorting to tear-jerking.

This is a small movie, by any extent, but it certainly made my hour-and-a-half much, much better! I recommend it.

I saw the trailer of this movie,caught my eye because i thought it will be a cheap,funny movie,without so much "fireworks" . But i was pleasantly surprised by the way the characters make you see and understand real life, they go through all sort of situations so you could learn something from them, and be prepared if it happens to you. Its not going to blow you away, but at the end it will feel like they are some friends of yours, and they really exist.Acceptably funny, a little sad at some times, and i'm sure the time i spent watching it isn't a loss. Don't judge it before you get a chance to watch it, its not a big budget movie, and was never intended, and that makes it better.

Ever since seeing the trailer earlier this year, I had been looking forward to seeing Farsan, the latest feature of the Lebanese-Swedish director Josef Fares. I have enjoyed all of his films that I have seen so far, from the comedic Jalla! Jalla! and Kopps to the more serious Zozo, and Farsan doesn't disappoint either.

Like many other Fares films, Farsan deals with immigrants in Sweden, even though the outsider's point of view is much less pronounced this time than in, say, Zozo. Aziz (Jan Fares) is a middle-aged widower who works in a bicycle store and eagerly waits for the birth of his first grandchild. However, his son Sami (Hamadi Khemiri) and daughter-in-law Amanda (Nina Zanjani) haven't dared to tell him that she is not really pregnant and that they are actually planning to adopt a child instead. After Sami suggests that his father should find a woman in his life to distract him from the baby issue, Aziz starts looking for potential wife candidates with the help of his two colleagues, the shy Jörgen (Torkel Petersson) and the laid-back Juan (Juan Rodríguez).

The film's main charm lies more in the lovable characters and performances than in outlandish situations, even though the comedic scenes are very funny at best, especially Aziz training Jörgen to be manlier and teaching a lesson to an irate customer skilled in kung fu. The general tone of the film is closer to drama than comedy, so a lot of attention is paid to fleshing the supporting characters out in addition to advancing the main storyline. Aziz's colleagues have their own troubles that reflect those of the main characters: Juan must learn to let go of his old dying dog much like Aziz must get over the death of his dear deceased wife. In turn, Jörgen has to overcome his marital insecurity, not unlike Sami who is trying to find the courage to reveal the truth about his future child to his father.

The director's own father Jan Fares does an excellent job as the eponymous dad; I loved the sense of vulnerability he conveys under his seemingly cheery and self-confident appearance. Torkel Petersson is more openly comedic as the emasculated Jörgen but also sends melancholic vibes through his role, perhaps acting as a symbol of sorts for the meek Swedish man in the increasingly demanding modern society. The storyline of Juan and his old Labrador retriever Dino is the most wistful one and may well bring a tear or two to dog lovers' eyes.

By including so many different emotions and details in one 97-minute movie, Josef Fares has certainly once again succeeded in delivering an enjoyable cinematic experience. I'm surprised to see it having only a mediocre rating on IMDb (5.6/10 with 657 votes at the time of writing this); I don't feel there are too many plot lines or that the Jörgen type of character has already been done too many times in other movies as indicated by some reviews I've read. Personally, I urge everyone to see the movie that will hopefully gain attention outside Sweden as well.

Part comedy, part drama, part cultural clash; this is the kind of movie you should go out to see if you fall into the following categories: 1) You're on a night out, preferably date, with someone whose cultural background is different from your own, 2) You are a Scandinavian who simply love Scandinavian films, despite their frequent array of shortcomings, and will most certainly 'go patriotic', 3) You are desperately trying to prove to yourself that you can be politically correct in all meanings of the term, or 4) You want to see some sort of romantic comedy really, really badly and unfortunately there just isn't anything better on.

It's a quilt, but not very well stitched together. Dangling storyline(s), mostly half-hearted acting, lack of direction, no universal mantra or moral to be grasped. There seems to be no real to the characters or the situations they are in, things just happen and are sort of dealt with. Sometimes in a good ways and most of the times in ways that are quite the opposite.

The film has its moments and will probably go home well with the lovestory-seeking teen demography and likely also their older and less movie-attending peers. But those of you who have seen quite a few similar kind of movies are most likely to see its shortcomings. The upside to this film is that although not being very good, it is at the same time not very bad. And sometimes "not bad" is good enough. Mainly it serves its purpose, and on the upside Jan Fares and Torkel Petersson act splendidly in some of their scenes. And Nina Zanjani looks stunning, as always. Maybe a little too much on the Young Celine Dion side in this film, but stunning nonetheless. There are some thought-out moments and decent ideas, though too many of them seem cramped within the story and even the good ones rarely lead anywhere. My guess is that they just didn't find the time to fine-tune the script. Or maybe the didn't care? The lack of refinedness could very well point towards the latter explanation.

In total I kind of regretted spending an evening going to the screening of this film. But I still hope most of you won't feel the same way after having watched it.