Faith and Falsehood
by Howard Schumann

In François Dupeyron's Monsieur Ibrahim, a Golden Globe nominee for Best Foreign Film, a weak script does an injustice to the considerable talents of veteran actor Omar Sharif and expressive newcomer Pierre Boulanger. Set in the Rue Bleue section of Paris in 1963, a home to working class Jews and prostitutes, the film celebrates the friendship between Monsieur Ibrahim (Sharif), an elderly Muslim grocer, and Momo (Boulanger), a 15-year old Jewish teenager, but the relationship feels contrived and inorganic. Momo's father (Gilbert Melki) is a depressed Holocaust survivor and the boy's only friends are the prostitutes that line the streets outside of his home, and Myriam, a freckled redhead Jewish girl who lives in the same building but is not ready for his advances. Momo, however, is incongruously brimming with self-confidence and an upbeat disposition that belies his troubled home life. Underscored by a brassy soundtrack and 60s rock music, he breaks his childhood piggy bank and becomes initiated by a prostitute named Sylvie (Anne Suarez), a buxom blonde whom he tells he is sixteen.

As the boy's father continues to antagonize his son by comparing him unfavorably to his estranged brother Paulie, the Arab grocer down the street takes on the role of a father substitute. The wise and kindly Ibrahim overlooks Momo's stealing from him and encourages the teenager to read The Koran, his holy book, expounding religious-based epigrams that, despite Sharif's charismatic presence, sound forced and pedantic. We do not learn much about Ibrahim's personal life except that he was once married and is a Sufi, a mystical offshoot of Islam. Seemingly out of character, he shows no compassion for Momo's troubled father, advising the boy to feed his father cat food, pretending it is paté and gives him stale bread to take home for dinner. He also overcharges actress Brigitte Bardot (Isabelle Adjani), who is in the neighborhood to make a film, to make up for all the things that Momo has stolen.

When Momo's father abandons him, leaving him a note telling him that he wasn't "cut out to be a father," the boy doesn't shed a tear, and also rejects his mother who comes looking for him after a fifteen year absence. Instead, Ibrahim "adopts" the boy, buying him a brand new red convertible, and taking him to his homeland in Turkey. The journey becomes a travelogue, with scenes of dusty hills that look as if they were lifted from an Abbas Kiarostami film. When they reach Istanbul, Ibrahim takes the boy to an Orthodox church, a Catholic church, and a Muslim mosque where he walks blindfolded so he can "open his senses," and watches the famous Whirling Dervishes, a mystical dance performed by Muslim priests in a prayer trance to Allah. Sadly, he is not also taken to a Jewish synagogue.

Although Ibrahim is a Sufi, the only discussion of Sufism is a dictionary reference to an "inner religion that is not legalistic." There is no discussion of why Sufism is unique, nor is there any dialogue between the two friends about the tenets of each other's faith. Indeed, the film ignores the close connection between Sufi mystical traditions and the Jewish Cabala, and the fact that Turkey was one of the few countries that provided a sanctuary for Jews escaping from Nazi oppression during the 1940s. While Monsieur Ibrahim is not without its charming moments, I found it ultimately unsatisfying, and was angered that the boy turns away from his own religion without giving a second thought to his heritage or his father who suffered through the Holocaust. Dupeyron said that he wanted to make a film about tolerance and bringing people together, yet he settles for a sentimentality that fails to enhance our understanding of either religion or forward a reconciliation of two great cultures.

As a result of a study in the 1950s in which efficiency experts at the Home Research Institute observed the kitchen habits of Swedish housewives to come up with a better workspace design, eighteen men are transported in caravans to farms in Norway to observe the cooking habits of Norwegian single men. Kitchen Stories, a quirky comedy co-written by Swedish director Bent Hamer and Norway's Jörgen Bergmark, depicts the relationship between two elderly single men, a relationship in which the observer ends up being the observed. The film is similar, in its deadpan humor and offbeat characters, to the work of Aki Kaurismäki, but without the Finnish director's overbearing self-consciousness.

The scientists wear white lab coats and carry clipboards, seemingly poised for an ET-like invasion. The observers, however, must live outside the homes of their subjects in small trailers and are not allowed to talk, drink, or otherwise interact with their subjects. Some, however, are not willing subjects. One of the scientists, Folke, a Swede (Tomas Norström), draws Isak (Joachim Calmeyer), an antisocial Norwegian farmer used to living in solitude. Isak at first refuses to let Folke into his house, resentful that the horse he was promised in return for his participation turned out to be a figurine. Folke, however, eventually gains access to the kitchen and sits every day perched in his high observation chair, recording Isak's every movement like the Lord High Executioner until Isak decides to take his hot plate up to his bedroom to frustrate his unwelcome guest.

The sly Isak drills a hole through the upstairs bedroom floor and now secretly watches Folke in the kitchen. When they start conversing, each man insists on speaking his own language (not shown by the subtitles) as if to doggedly maintain their separate identities. Gradually they become friends, breaking through the barriers in their life that have imposed a limiting solitude. They begin first by drinking coffee in the morning, sharing a bit of their background, and then celebrating Isak's birthday with cake and bourbon whiskey. Their interaction, of course, is against the rules of the study, and there are consequences for Folke. His life, however, acquires new meaning the more willing he is to take risks and share himself openly. Kitchen Stories is a small film, but one that is warmhearted and thoroughly enjoyable, a work that celebrates the small pleasures in just being alive without trying to be profound or seduce us with blatant emotional appeals.

Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers is a gorgeously filmed ode to cinema that captures the pulse of Paris in the late 1960s, its bravery and idealism as well as its ambiguities. Based on The Holy Innocents, a novel by Gilbert Adair, The Dreamers joyously recreates the time of burgeoning student political awareness, sexual liberation and heightened interest in world cinema. Interspersing clips from films such as Shock Corridor, Freaks, Breathless, Top Hat, and Mouchette, with movie scenes reenacted by the characters, Bertolucci conveys a passion for cinema that allows a new generation to experience the glory days of the movies and the feeling of revolution in the air. Bertolucci is not intimidated by taboos, and there is a lot of simulated sex and full frontal nudity that has resulted in an NC-17 rating but, beyond the squirm factor, none of it seems very shocking anymore.

The film begins as a large protest is gathering over the firing of Henri Langlois as director of Cinematheque Francaise by Minister of Culture Andre Malraux. During the protest, Matthew (Michael Pitt), a blond twenty-year old Californian studying in Paris, meets twins Theo (Louis Garrel), a young French student, and his sister Isabelle (Eva Green). Isabelle, wearing a red beret, has chained herself to the Cinematheque gate but it is soon apparent that she is only playing at protest. Theo and Isabelle invite Matthew home to meet their father, a famous poet, and mother, a British intellectual. When the parents go on vacation, Matthew moves from his hotel to share their elegant Paris apartment, and the group embarks on a voyage of self-discovery that includes every variety of experimentation you can imagine and even some you cannot.

Most of the film takes place inside the apartment. They drink vintage wine, smoke herbs, talk about revolution, have sex, talk about movies, then have more sex, all to an ingratiating soundtrack featuring artists such as Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix and The Doors. The twins, who Matthew discovers sleep together, express their erotic fixation, playing mind games seeking to discover who has the most knowledge of cinema with the loser having to undergo a "forfeit," a form of sexual punishment. Theo and Isabelle play the role of sophisticate to naïve Matthew. "You Americans don't understand your own culture," Theo says. "No wonder you never got the point of Jerry Lewis." Matthew is awed by his friends' seeming worldliness but is shocked when he discovers that, for all her posing, Isabelle is a virgin, a dreamer playing the role of sophisticate.

There are scenes to warm the heart of every cinephile. In one exhilarating sequence, the three friends try to beat the record from Godard's Band of Outsiders by running through the Louvre. In another, Isabelle imitates the memory scene from Queen Christina as Bertolucci. They argue the merits of great performers from the past such as Keaton and Chaplin, but for them cinema seems to be divorced from real life, and they appear unaware of the increasing politicization of the films of the French New Wave. Consistent with its title, The Dreamers is about young people who would rather dream than act. Afraid of being committed to anything outside of themselves, desperate to feel important, they are in love with the world in their head, not the one outside their window. Theo talks about Mao and the Red Guard and is all for revolution, except when it means taking some form of action. They try to exclude everything outside of their comfort zone, but life has a way of objecting. It is only when the world intrudes in the form of a political demonstration that they get a powerful wake-up call that may just have saved their life.

In times of great change, people's religious beliefs often become polarized, veering toward either extreme fundamentalism or very personal experience. Over the past few decades, a spiritual movement has arisen that encourages people to look inward for truth rather than relying on external authorities. Now Mel Gibson has countered with the Passion of the Christ, a powerful but bombastic film that restates, in excessively graphic terms, fundamentalist Christian beliefs about how the death of Jesus atoned for the sins of mankind. The film chronicles the accusation of blasphemy from the Jewish high priests to the trial overseen by Roman governor Pontius Pilate and Jesus' eventual crucifixion at the hands of the Romans at Golgotha, while restricting the message of his teachings to a few unconvincing sound bites. We are shown, in explicit detail, Jesus being whipped, scourged, mocked, spat on, getting spikes driven through his hands and feet, and left to die on the cross. Use of the original tongues of Aramaic and Latin add realism, while special effects such as female demons, satanic children, and a sinister figure screaming at the heavens lend a dark and surreal touch, but seem strangely out of place.

The film opens in the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus (James Caviezel) is praying alone, fearful of what he knows is his fate. A black-coated Satan hovers around tempting him to surrender while his disciples have fallen asleep and Judas (Luca Lionello) collects his thirty pieces of silver from the temple guards. The film heats up when Jesus is arrested and hauled before the Sanhedrin High Priest Caiaphas (Mattia Sbragia) to stand trial for blasphemy. In the crowd are Jesus' supporters, including John (Hristo Jivkov), Mary Magdalen (Monica Bellucci) and Mary, beautifully performed by Maia Morgenstern. In touching sequences, the relationship between mother and son is shown in flashbacks from the time Jesus was a child to the present when she runs to help Jesus as he slumps to the ground.

Unfortunately, every character other than Jesus and his followers is portrayed as bloodthirsty, hysterical, and corrupt, with the exception of Pontius Pilate (Hristo Naumov Shopov) who is depicted, contrary to biblical accounts, as a suffering saint, perplexed and shocked by the crowd's brutality. Whether or not the film is overtly antisemitic is questionable, but passion plays have for centuries reinforced the notion of collective Jewish guilt for the death of Jesus, and have created a climate for antisemitic acts. At the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1988, bishops issued recommendations urging producers not to show "a teeming mob" calling for Jesus' death. These recommendations are violated in Passion of the Christ, which shows a vacillating Pilate giving in to a bloodthirsty Jewish mob demanding Jesus' crucifixion.

This is followed by ten minutes of exaggerated blood-soaked violence, as Jesus is tied to a post, whipped with a stick, then sadistically flayed again with a whip that has metal barbs at each end, his flesh torn out by the hooks. When he is finally nailed to the cross in slow motion hammer strokes, we breathe a sigh of relief because emotional numbness has taken over and we know the end is close. Gibson self-servingly describes his film as "the most authentic and biblically accurate film about Jesus' death," and says that he used excessive violence to help us to better understand the sacrifice Jesus made for humanity. This completely ignores the fact that the biblical accounts of the trial are contradictory and do not contain details of the punishment except to say that Jesus was "scourged."

Whether it "is as it was," or as it never was and never will be, I found Passion to be heavy handed, emotionally draining, and lacking in spiritual feeling. Caviezel's performance is lacking in presence and conviction. Jesus spoke with clarity and eloquence about man's unbreakable connection to his creator, and saw the potential for humanity to live the truth without guilt. In the Beatitudes, Jesus blesses those who hunger and thirst after justice. His intended result was not to incite anger but to enhance our capacity for love and forgiveness. If the purpose of Gibson's film is to stun audiences and encode images deep in our psyche, he has succeeded, yet his legacy may be to damage interfaith relationships and our view of religion as a way of bringing people together.

©2004 Howard Schumann
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