Paul F. Agusta, Contributor/Pfa0109@yahoo.com
It is rare in modern French cinema, which has been dominated for the last five years by dark, nihilistic works like Gaspar Noe's and Virginie Despentes' Rape Me to find a film with a gentler view of existence. Around four years back, a glimmer of a more positive view emerged in Jean Jeunet's sweet and dreamlike Amelie, but was quickly lost again in the larger trend.
As Malaysian director Yasmin Ahmad and Sepet has commented, in a world grown darker through strife and cynicism, films have become have become grimmer, more violent and have shied away from life-affirming themes such as love and hope. It has become too easy to forget that even in the deepest night, there is some light.
Francois Dupeyron's Monsieur Ibrahim et les Fleurs du Coran (""Mr. Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Koran"") starts out with all of the elements of darkness and hopelessness solidly in place: A neglected, then orphaned boy living in a dilapidated apartment in an urban pocket of poverty in Paris, assorted streetwalkers, pimps, drug dealers and others of ill-repute. Then the screenplay, written by Dupreyon from the novel by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, throws an additional ingredient into this lethal mix: hope in the unlikely embodiment of a curmudgeonly Turkish shopkeeper, Monsieur Ibrahim.
Played in a career peak performance by cinematic legend Omar Sharif, who had all but retired due to a lack of worthwhile scripts and roles outside of the narrow stereotypes of rich Arab sheiks and international villains with Middle East accents, the lonely, aging and downtrodden Monsieur Ibrahim emerges as an unlikely guardian angel and mentor for the orphaned Jewish boy, Momo.
As the story begins, Momo, played self-consciously cocky and bold by Pierre Boulanger, lives with his divorced father, essentially taking on the role of housekeeper and parent as he does all of the shopping, cooking and cleaning, while going to school and dealing with the challenges typical to emerging from the chrysalis of childhood into adolescence.
As time passes, Momo's father loses his job, and one night simply does not return. The desperate boy sells off all of his father's books and anything else of value left behind, then resorts to theft from Monsieur Ibrahim's small, dingy grocery.
This is when Momo's life begins to change as the compassionate heart of the old Turkish man begins to open toward him, at first from pity, then from recognition of the broken heart hidden behind Momo's brash street kid facade.
As Monsieur Ibrahahim is fond of saying, ""I don't know much, but I do know my Koran"". This is reflected in his gentle, but firm mentoring of the young lost soul that has wandered into his care. The principles of compassion, charity and education so core to the teachings of the Muslim holy book find their way onto the screen through the thoughts and actions of this lonely old man who longs for a son he never had and for a home he left long ago.
Although this complex and twisting journey of two lost souls, who find each other and themselves in the midst of sorrow and misery, starts off ponderously as the characters are slowly developed through layer after complex layer of human foibles and contradictions, it eventually picks up pace as storylines and lives come together is a masterful tale.
Supported by astonishingly real and powerfully persuasive performances by the well-respected senior actor Omar Sharif and the relatively unknown Pierre Boulanger, Monsieur Ibrahim delights not only through the sheer emotional impact of the finely crafted script, but with its hauntingly moving soundtrack and at times startling visuals.
With this film Monsieur Ibrahim et les Fleurs du Coran, Francois Dupeyron effectively reminds us that love, human kindness, hope and peace of mind, like the faint glimmers of stars in a distant darkened sky, can appear in even the direst moments of human life. Yet, he never allows the film to stumble into the abyss of melodrama. Instead he depicts the darkness for what it is, the antithetic precursor for another moment in the sun.
