 |
2-D SAMSARA A Picture of Smiles
By Hannah Dallman
|
|
| AGAINST THE BACKDROP OF A JEWISH, working class neighborhood in Paris in the early sixties, we meet Momo (Pierre Boulanger) in Francois Dupeyron’s Monsieur Ibrahim. He’s just turned sixteen, and to celebrate, he breaks open his childhood piggybank and carefully counts the required 35 Francs he will need to engage the services of Sylvie (Anne Suarez). She is but one of the many bright and cheery streetwalkers that occupy the Rue Bleue. Momo’s mother has long since abandoned the family, and his father, in the grips of a deep depression, is critical of Momo, and constantly holds him up to the example of a long-lost older brother. Left to fend for himself, and with the mature countenance that only youngsters in such a situation have, he is slowly befriended by Ibrahim (Omar Sharif), the greengrocer across the street. Neither Ibrahim nor Momo have much of a life beyond their little corner of the world, nor does Momo particularly trust the grocer, at least at first. His father refers to Ibrahim as ‘the Arab,’ less out of knowledge of the gentleman’s ethnicity, but because his store is open at night and on the weekends. One day, seemingly reading Momo’s thoughts as he is on his way out of the store, Ibrahim tells him that he’s not an Arab, but is in fact from the Fertile Crescent, Turkey. From there, the bond between the two is solidified when French icon Brigitte Bardot (Isabelle Adjani) pays a visit to the store while shooting a movie in the neighborhood. Ibrahim overcharges her for water, explaining to Momo that he has to make up ‘for all the cans he pinches.’ Momo’s father abandons him, and later commits suicide. Ibrahim goes to identify and bury him, and eagerly becomes the father figure Momo had always wished for. From there, Ibrahim buys a slick red sports car (like the one Miss Bardot rode in), and the two set off for an adventure to Turkey. Omar Sharif has, of course, a wonderful presence on screen. His Ibrahim dishes out small tidbits of Sufi wisdom to young Momo without being boring or pretentious. Life for Ibrahim is like the dancing of dervishes. “When you dance, your heart sings. They spin around their hearts, and God is in their hearts.” Sharif sums it up in an interview on the film’s website; “I was terrified of finding Ibrahim boring, because Momo is, from the beginning, a rather sad character, and if Ibrahim acts pedantically, or starts to give him lessons in morality, we would be in danger of making the most annoying film ever. Luckily I break up everything that I say in the film with some humor. It is a picture about smiles, I had understood that much a long time before I knew how to say it. When Momo opens up his first smile and begins to get what he wants, the picture takes off.” Indeed it does. While Boulanger is still young, and his performance sometimes lacks depth, his face does have an openness and warmth that allows you to believe that he is truly affected by his character’s journey. From crowded Paris streets, to the sounds and smells of places of worship in the Middle East, the teenager opens to experiences that only the old Sufi, Ibrahim, made visible. “If you want to learn, don’t go to a book,” says Ibrahim, “talk to someone.” Francois Dupeyron’s direction of this parable of friendship is quite lovely. The characters’ inner journey is reflected outwardly; from the jostling, close shots of Paris that begin the film, to the open, calm, and expansive wide shots of the Turkish countryside where the film reaches its climax. This film, in its essence, is what writer/director Quentin Tarantino would call a “hang out” movie--you enjoy it not because the plot is full of riveting twists and turns, but simply because it’s nice to be with the characters for a spell. Like young Momo, we should learn to look for beauty everywhere, and learn to trust “the immensity.” |
||
| Hannah Dallman, wife of Manifest editorial advisor Matthew Dallman, is a graduate film student at Columbia College in Chicago and seems to also know a lot about sushi (judging from her last visit to Boulder). |
©2003-2004 The Manifest E-Zine