Je ne suis pas mort

This is a French film written and directed by the French-Tunisian director Mehdi ben Attia. Ben Attia's script is certainly as strange as they come. The film is exceedingly daring and treats the supernatural as normal. The style of the film is very French hand-held, all set in Paris, lots of rapid cuts, no bothering with framing of shots most of the time. It is impossible to describe what the incredibly weird story line is without writing a spoiler review. Ben Attia's hero is, not surprisingly, a young man of Northern African descent (Algerian Arab) trying to make a life for himself in France. He largely overcomes the prejudice against Arabs because he is extremely intelligent and doing well training for a high civil service position. He is played very well by Mehdi Dehbi. He befriends his philosophy professor, played by Emmanuel Salinger. Thus he meets the professor's younger and glamorous wife, a film and stage actress, played by Maria de Medeiros. She has eyes almost as large as her face, into which Dehbi clearly wishes to plunge. A very good supporting role is played by Judith Davis as a political activist student who is in love with Dehbi, but he barely notices her. This film begins as a typical French film about people's relationships. But it soon veers into another dimension altogether, and we realize that the characters who have been introduced to us are about to become anything but normal. I shall refrain from explaining what this film is really about and the events which occur because there is just no way to do so. Just be prepared if you watch the film for it to become very, very strange and also fascinating.