Les hommes libres

Another film inspired by the Nazi invasion in France. This one shows a more normal side of life, where the danger and the dread is not taken seriously until something happens. Lots of close calls to keep the tension and enough normalcy to imagine how it could be tolerated.

Tahar Rahim plays Younes, a young Algerian in Paris during the Nazi occupation, planning to return to Algeria after he gets rich on the black market. Instead, he ends up joining the Resistance and helping a few Jews escape through the Paris mosque.

Rahim is a gifted actor. I first saw him in A Prophet, a so-so prison movie in which he gave a fantastic performance. Free Men has a great performance by Michael Lonsdale as the head of the mosque, and maybe that's why Rahim seems less impressive in this movie than he was in A Prophet. A Prophet made me an instant fan, but if I'd seen Free Men first I don't think that would have happened; Rahim is good in it, but not fantastic.

Another problem I have with Free Men is that the central relationship is between Younes and a young Jewish singer of North African music named Salim who has survived because the mosque gave him false ID as a Moslem. The friendship between Younes and Salim is supposed to be inspiring (I think), but it just annoyed the hell out of me.

First, the actor who plays Salim is an Arab, not a Jew, and he looks like an Arab, not a Jew. Trying to see the character as a Jew is practically impossible, but his Jewishness is key to the movie. If their friendship is supposed to exemplify some sort of grand utopian harmony between Arabs and Jews, it fails.

Second, Salim is supposed to be the world's greatest singer of North African music, but to me it was nearly unbearable, just a bunch of ugly, whiny, screechy, nasal noise. I don't mean to offend North Africans, but their music doesn't sound like music to me (Lots of American music is even worse, though, including punk, heavy metal and rap).

Plus, the guy playing Salim is so ugly that I couldn't look at him for more than a few seconds at a time; he has weird eyes that reminded me of the Emperor's yellow eyes in The Empire Strikes Back (or maybe it was Return of the Jedi), only Salim's are a strange unnatural blue color. Better casting of that role might have helped this movie a lot.

So I don't recommend Free Men. The only things I enjoyed were Lonsdale's performance and seeing a sort of street-level view of what Paris may have been like under the Nazis, which I don't think I'd ever seen before.

FREE MEN was just screened to a sold-out crowd at the Rendez-vous with French Cinema in New York. It was a wonderfully acted, well told fictional film of Arabs helping resistance fighters (including North African Jews) during the German occupation of France during WW2.

Dramatic and suspenseful, pitting collaborators versus resistance fighters, gestapo officials versus the authorities at a mosque.

Given the ethnic tensions in Paris today, this film offers an alternate vision of unity in the face of oppression.

Definitely worth seeing on the festival circuit or in art house release.

Ismaël Ferroukhi both wrote (with Alain-Michel Blanc) and directed this emotionally charged story based on fact and peppered with real and fictitious characters to drive home the point of the film - that differences among peoples become erased in response to a common enemy. This is a powerful little film made more radiant because of the brilliant cast.

In German occupied Paris in WW II there is a segment of Algerian and Moroccan immigrants who survive on the fringes largely due to people like the unemployed Younes (the handsome and gifted French actor of Algerian origin Tahir Rahim) who runs a black market selling cigarettes, tea, coffee and food to his fellow Algerians - until he is caught by the police. Instead to going to prison he is set up to spy on the Paris Mosque, thought by the police to be center for the Mosque authorities, including its rector Ben Ghabrit (Michael Lonsdale) of aiding Muslim Resistance agents and helping North African Jews by giving them false certificates. At the Mosque, Younes meets the Algerian singer Salim Halali (Mahmud Shalaby), and is moved by Salim's beautiful voice and strong personality. When Younes discovers that Salim is Jewish, he stops collaborating with the police and gradually transforms from a politically ignorant immigrant black marketeer into a fully-fledged freedom fighter. It is this friendship between Younes and Salim that shapes the changes in Younes character, allowing him to move form a non-political opportunist to a committed freedom fighter.

There are many side stories that occur - the influence of the Gestapo, the presence of the mysterious Leila (the profoundly gifted and beautiful Lubna Azabal), Vichy collaborators, Muslims, Jews, Christians, resistance fighters, communists, spies, snitches, fugitives, traitors, criminals, children and innocents - with the theme of discovered camaraderie emerging slowly but surely. This is an inspired film that opens windows to parts of WW II history little known to the general public, and at films end the history of the post war activities of those character who are real is revealed, with 'Younes' being described as the general representative of all the Algerian and Jewish immigrants. The score is filled with the singing of Salim/Mahmud Shalaby that adds a definite feeling of authenticity to the film. In French and Arabic with English subtitles.

Grady Harp

"Free Men (les hommes libres) a masterpiece. It's a historical fiction film exploring Muslim-Jewish solidarity through the (true) story of the Shaykh of the Grand Mosque in Paris during Nazi occupied France who issued certificates for Jewish families (stating that they are Muslim) for their owns safety (the same mosque also gave 1500 Jews refuge in their basement).

Beyond it's potent themes though, it's a film that underlines the ordinariness of heroism with such subtlety & deftness. There are moments of powerful stillness that contrast with the violent reign of the Nazi's in France. I found myself pausing to reflect at some of the poetry in both the films dialogue and moments of brevity.

It's a remarkable work of art and one of the best films i've ever seen. I would ignore the critics in major publications giving this middling reviews. It reflects a wider problem in the reviews of films where the majority are white men (Analysis of reviews of top releases found that only 22.2% were written by women, with 82% of critics white). It's therefore unsurprising that, many white critics were not blown away by a film that shows a mosque as a hub of solidarity and where no white saviour is present.