L'apôtre

"The Apostle" is a problematic film to review because it cut so straight to my heart I can't examine it without examining my own conscience.

Cheyenne Caron's film is likely to be labeled as Anti-Muslim but not because it's about a Muslim man who converts to Christianity (which is controversial enough) but because it dares to express the reasons that drive the conversion. Akim, a Muslim and aspiring Imam, finds in Jesus' teachings a universality that seemed to lack in Islam, I say "seemed" because I've never read the Quran entirely yet I consider myself a Muslim. But just as I'm aware that Islam is a universal religion, preaching good values such as charity, generosity and forgiveness, I know many Muslims who'll argue that the applications of these virtues shouldn't go outside the Muslim world, or in the best case, that Muslims should take care of their brothers first whereas Jesus saw everyone as a brother.

That's why Akim is instantly taken by Christianism, and it was bound to happen. First, we see him practicing Islam, praying at the right time, going to the mosque every Friday, all under the careful supervision of his hot-headed and more bigot brother Youssef and yet he seems like a fish out of the water. He answers the phone call during a prayer, he salutes a man considered a traitor because he changed his faith (while his brother refused to shake his hand), and he accepts an invitation to a baptism. Akim is a strong-willed fellow, resisting peer and family pressure and doing what seems to be the right thing to do, when he goes to church, it's not out of curiosity but out of politeness for a friend who did him a favor.

And the film escapes from the kind of Manicheism à la "Not Without My Daughter" by taking the right approach and not making Akim's family a hostile field with the exception of the brother, his sister doesn't wear the headscarf, his father is a meek and gentle fellow and the mother is obviously a French convert. So Akim's choice can't be seen as a rejection to his background but as some tiny pocket of introspection that lead him to a personal epiphany: the idea that there's a religion where (ironically) someone's religion doesn't matter. I don't think it's totally true and Christianism has it shares of rules (and in some aspects Islam can be more permissive if not progressive) but what matters is Akim's perception and one must know what it feels for a Muslim to visit a church for the first time.

Last time I did, it was during a funeral, the same year had started with another death and I could compare the two ceremonies; while in Muslim tradition, the psalms seem to beg God for mercy not to let the dead's soul rot in Hell, in the church, there was a sort of peacefulness making you believe that we'd all meet some day in a cloud of serenity at the Heaven's Gate. Now, is the film siding with converts? I guess it just tells the two perspectives and no one can deny that the worst thing that can happen in a Muslim community is someone's conversion. The real question isn't why Muslims can't stand it but why Christians don't mind? That's the point. Why are Muslims so visceral about faith? Maybe there's something of an insecurity going one, the idea that the best thing about religion is what keeps people together... as if nothing else could do the same, not even pure brotherhood or being part of the same planet.

"The Apostle" follows a slow escalation from curiosity to mild interest and then the progression seems inevitable and yet we dread the crucial moment where Akim will tell his family that he's a Christian, the climactic scene is one of the most intense I had to witness and not just because it was devastating but also because it features an interesting twist within the father's reaction, a man who once was told that Christians were more tolerant and for the first time was given a chance to subvert that comparison by showing tolerance toward his son's choice. That scene was so intense that maybe the film didn't need to venture into some displays of violence, from the shocking opening to the attack against Akim but those things exist and happen so ordinarily that it would have been naive to deny them, and they're actually downplayed in the film, so much that even those who criticize the "anti-Islam" stance would find the happy end incongruous.

I am still a Muslim after the film but I reckon it can be quite an ordeal as faith is like riding over in a bumpy road with so many up and downs, they call it doubt journey is Islam, one day, you're the most devoted believer and another, you're just watching terrorist attacks and feel tempted to throw everything away. Sometimes, it's just a matter of hazard, my ex-wife was raised by a Catholic mother but embraced her deceased father's religion Islam because she couldn't take the Trinity seriously. Akim uses it to reassure the young Imam, as if it was an inside joke within the community. It's true Muslims couldn't consider anyone as the son of God or find the idea of God fathering someone ludicrous, which made me wonder, if Christians didn't believe in Trinity or if Islam were open to others, which religion would have the most followers?

"Apostle" is an eye-opening experience about the way religion is affecting lives and creates divisions despite its primal ambitions to bring people together. It doesn't give definite answers but the questions raised are so accurate that they exorcise the demons that are right not devouring French society... and the film was made before the Charlie Hebdo attacks and November 13, which makes it eerily prophetic.

Cheyenne Carron is perhaps the most interesting French director to emerge in the tens of the 21th century ; a woman of contradictions,she champions tolerance and abnegation but she also praises values which are not shared by politically correct people such as hunting,return to royalty or legion etrangère camaraderie and honor values. And last but not least religion is almost always present in her efforts ;even when it does not deal with it at all ,her title is taken from a Christian prayer ("Ne nous soumets pas à la tentation"=lead us not into temptation)

"L'apôtre " and " la chute des hommes" ,are opposites sides of a coin ; but whereas in this failed latter movie ,a Jihadist urges a hostage to recant her Christian faith and to embrace Islam so as to go to Allah's paradise when he has slain her , "l'apôtre " is a message of tolerance :violence is kept to the minimum and only intervenes in the final scenes .

"L'apôtre " is both Carron 's most religious movie and ,oddly , her most accessible and her most satisfying ; it owes a lot to Fayçal Safi ,then hailed as one of the most promising newcomers ,quite rightly so . He portrays a young Muslim,who's fascinated by a Christian priest's attitude :although his sister was murdered by a neighbour , the man of God continues to live near the assassin's family 's house , "to help them to live" , applying Jesus Christ's "return good for evil" commandment .

Much time is given over to scenes where the young Muslims study the Coran ,and Akim does not give up on his religion overnight ; he comes against his coreligionists and his own family,particularly his brother whose faith in Allah must not ,in a world of Sundays ,called into question.

Matching Safi, all along his rocky road is Yannick Guérin's portrayal of a truly saint vicar, who never tries to convert Akim ,but simply explains to him why Jesus would approve of his forgiveness:the Saviour forgave the good thief on the cross after all ; the interminable conversations one often finds in Carron's works are sometimes downright boring ;but ,in "l'apôtre", they are absorbing, passionate and pivotal ; the vicar epitomes the good Samaritan of the Gospels. But ,on the other hand , he never claims to possess the truth and he does think there's not much difference between Allah and God : never, except in the violent (and in this context irrelevant)scene when Akim is worked over , the Islam is demeaned :this religion too preaches love,charity (to give to the poor is one of their tenets)and forgiveness.

Although this is Carron's only movie to be entirely devoted to faith , religion would become a permanent feature in her works : in "la morsure des dieux " ,neither the bourgeois priest who drives a shining car nor his girlfriend won't convert the hero who does not believe in a God forever absent ; although no miracle occurs in "l'Apôtre " ,she would use "divine interventions" several times afterwards : "le soleil reviendra " ,"le fil d'un roi" ; and the final pictures of the otherwise unconvincing "la chute des hommes " depicts some kind of jihadist's road of Damascus .

If you want to discover Miss Cheyenne's work ,this is definitely the movie to begin with.