Le jeune Ahmed

The Dardenne brothers have once again produced a film that is both simple and powerful.

As the title suggests, this is the story of young Ahmed, a pre-teen who becomes totally involved in Islamism under the influence of an imam who recruits people to kill those who don't think like the Islamists. The film is interesting because it shows how the imam goes about indoctrinating him. The film is interesting because it shows how the imam goes about indoctrinating him, which will disturb, interrogate and question those around him: his school teacher, his family.

The great quality of the film is its script and staging: the story is told through the staging and what we see, i.e. Not through dialogues, intertitles or voice-overs, but through the behavior of the characters, particularly the young man. It's an impressive feat of realism and simplicity, giving every second of the film a sense of tension, a seemingly inescapable race to the finish. As the viewer is constantly from the young man's point of view, but not in his head, he discovers and understands what he is doing with a slight delay. And of course, the Dardennes exclude music from the staging: the film contains none. There's no bias to make us understand or dramatize what we're watching. A kind of empirical method.

Simple, powerful cinema. Prix de la Mise en Scène at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. It seems obvious.

The Dardenne brothers linger, during 80 minutes, to a subject as cleaving as delicate: obscurantism and radicalization. Although the atmosphere is neat, the psychology of the characters is not elaborate enough. Thus, the character of Ahmed interpreted by Idir Ben Addi is definitely not credible: he looks like a harmless kid with a baby face. I can not believe such a child might fool adults so easily. As a matter of fact, the film is essentially based on this character who may then be considered as the keystone of a cinematographic structure. This keystone being defective, the structure collapses! Moreover, the rhythm of the film is a bit sluggish, even if this feeling is possibly due to my global lack of interest for the movie. In short: disappointing! 4/5 of 10.

Even as an agnostic who sees religion very critically, I'm baffled how irresponsibly the producers and directors fuel the fire of bigotry, with such an agenda driven film, in an already toxic political climate. It's rather appalling how the movie tries to intentionally vilify a group of people, by regurgitating the same islamophobic tropes we have been hearing for 20+ years, while failing to maintain any nuance. How can a movie call for open mindedness while being bigoted and close minded itself?

Over the last twenty years, the Dardenne brothers' ("The Unknown Girl") social realist dramas about the forgotten and the marginalized have been honored at the Cannes Film Festival with two Palme d'Ors, two Best Performance awards, one Best Screenplay award, and one Grand Prix. Their magic is still in evidence in their latest film, Young Ahmed, which won them the award for Best Director this year at Cannes. While it is a small film on a very big subject - that of Islamic fundamentalism - the film manages to deliver a thought-provoking and involving experience in spite of its 84-minute length and the broad scope of its subject.

Set in a small town in Belgium, a country that has endured recent terrorist attacks, the film belongs to first-time actor Idir Ben Addi who delivers a remarkable performance as Ahmed, a studious-looking, bespectacled 13-year-old boy whose hangdog appearance and inarticulateness masks his devotion to a fundamentalist religious philosophy that takes no prisoners. With his youth and malleability, his growing adherence to what he considers to be a true Muslim is fostered by his relationship with a local imam, Youssouf (Othmane Moumen, "Bad Buzz") who rails at what he considers to be the growing secular attack on Islam.

Without a father in the home to guide him, Ahmed personifies those whose obsession with ideology blinds them to their own humanity and that of others, taking on the imam's "us versus them" attitude even when it comes to his family. He calls his sister a "slut" because of the casual way she dresses and berates his mother (Claire Bodson, "Our Children") for drinking wine and not wearing a hijab. Apparently, Ahmed's transformation is recent since his mother laments the fact that just last year all he thought about were video games, but we do not know what triggered Ahmed's transformation and the film does not pursue it.

We do know, however, that he is burdened by the memory of his cousin who apparently took his own life as a suicide bomber, a fact that the imam will not let him forget. The teenager's main source of conflict is with his teacher Inès (Myriem Akheddiou, "The Kid with a Bike"). He refuses to shake her hand because he thinks women are impure and because she is dating a person of the Jewish faith. He is also upset about her plans to use music to teach Arabic and the Quran, plans that he considers sacrilegious. Labeled by the imam as an apostate, the impressionable teenager tries to prove his faith by physically assaulting her, an action for which he is placed in juvenile custody. Even this is too much for the imam who tells Ahmed that he said to oppose her beliefs, not try to kill her.

At the juvenile facility, Ahmed is treated with respect by his caseworker, psychologist, and teachers, but the viewer is left probing for clues as to whether Ahmed regrets his actions and is willing to change or whether he is quietly planning another assault. As part of his rehabilitation, he is sent to a farm where he is befriended by Louise (Victoria Bluck), the young daughter at the farm, but even her kiss does not awaken in him a feeling for people who have a different outlook on life. While Young Ahmed centers on the fundamentalist tenets of one religion, the film is not an attack on Islam but an assertion that any idea which considers itself to be the only true belief is antithetical to long-established ideals of tolerance and religious freedom.

Ultimately, no words or actions of others seem to reach Ahmed. As director Jean-Pierre Dardenne put it, "Fanatics don't listen to the outside world; they build a wall between themselves and the world. Their only goal is for others to become like them, no matter the cost." Though the direction in which Ahmed is headed is unclear, it is in the moment when his body deserts him that we get a hint he knows that his only escape from the bondage of ideology is to discover the true nature of his own being and that his only loss will be that which has stood in the way of his deeper understanding of the world.

In Belgium, the teenager Ahmed (Idir Ben Addi) lives with his family and has classes of French and Arabic languages with his teacher Inès (Myriem Akheddiou). However, he has been brainwashed by his Imam Youssouf (Othmane Moumen) with a wrong interpretation of the Koran, despite the warnings of his mother (Claire Bodson). Ahmed decides to kill Inès but fails and is arrested. While under the care of the State, he works at a farm and meets the young Louise (Victoria Bluck), who has a crush on him. But she is not Muslin, and Ahmed scorns her. The radical Ahmed has an agenda and flees from his social worker.

"Le jeune Ahmed", a.k.a. "Young Ahmed" (2019), is a Franco-Belgian production with a simple story of hatred. The movie shows an impressive demonstration of how teenagers may be manipulated and become fanatic by radicals. This is the case of the lead character Ahmed, who received and adopted a wrong interpretation of the Koran and is destroyed by his belief. My only question is why fanatics stay in the Western civilization, instead of returning to their home countries. This is the same case of fanatic racists that praise their mother land. Why they do not move back? My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O Jovem Ahmed" ("The Young Ahmed")