Free Men [DVD]

This wartime French-language drama freely mixes actual people and events with a fictional narrative, about Younes, a young Algerian man scratching a living in Nazi-occupied Paris. Free Men follows a conventional narrative, exploring Younes' rite of passage from naïve, self-interested youth towards a manhood honed by the relentless impact of the Gestapo jackboot on the people around him.
Initially he looks out only for himself and his immediate family, not hesitating to trade on the black market and take advantage of any deal, at the expense of anyone else including penniless compatriots. When first pressed by the Vichy police to spy at the local mosque his reticence isn't on moral grounds - his discomfort stems from his lack of experience and fear of being caught. At the start of the film, Younes would apparently sell anyone to save his own skin. By the end of it he is ... different. He finds a cause to defend, sometimes running the ultimate risk and taking the ultimate action.

Interwoven with the main plot are many other intriguing threads and characters; Vichy collaborators, Nazi officers, Muslims, Jews, Christians, spivs, resistance fighters, communists, spies, snitches, fugitives, traitors, criminals, children and innocents - with the theme of discovered brotherhood at the film's core. We're left to wonder if the Imam and rector are helping Jews to escape (by providing them with false identities as Muslims) simply because it is the right thing to do... or if they have one eye on a postwar future in which Algeria would want to claim its independence from France.
That's part of what makes Free Men so satisfying. It's beautifully filmed, evoking a more normal depiction of wartime Paris than the stereotype we see so often; it's obviously an occupied city with arrests and martial law, but it's also one where people go about their lives, adapting to the strange circumstances of the time. The colours are human - not a wash of grey misery - the events are commonplace, and affirm that even when the most appalling horrors of history are going on, people still have birthdays, still go to the mosque, still dance, still wash clothes... still form connections.
So Free Men works on many levels. It's both an intelligent, fulfilling story in its own right and a window onto an unfamiliar political situation which is extremely relevant today, in the aftermath of the Arab spring.
And the music! The soundtrack is integral to the film's themes and takes centrestage on a couple of occasions, but it never overwhelms the conventional action. It perfectly highlights Younes' early isolation... and then gradually he's drawn into a foot-tapping, head-nodding rhythm along with his compatriots. The beauty of the Arabic vocals are wonderfully underplayed; at times the translated lyric is stunningly banal, but the sound almost angelic.

Free Men is, then, an unusually accessible arthouse / foreign language film, with themes we can easily relate to - but with plenty of meat in each scene to muse on for days to come. At its heart it is an optimistic, uplifting film which chooses to concentrate on the aspects of goodness emerge even at times of the greatest evil.
Not a typical war movie, it reminds us that an act of heroism can be something as simple as walking the streets of Paris during daylight to take two small children to safety.
Bravo.

9/10

For an alternative, altogether more grey, grim and gritty war story with similar themes, try In Darkness [DVD]

This is the story of Younes (Tahir Rahim -`A Prophet') he plays a small time Algerian, black marketer in German occupied Paris circa 1942. He gets caught by the collaborationist French Gendarmes and in return for not being jailed (or worse) is told he has to spy on the Paris Mosque. The authorities believe it is being used as a centre to protect `undesirables' and for giving out false documents to aid people fleeing the Nazi rule. At the mosque he meets a talented Arabic singer Salim Halali (Mahumud Shalaby), and Younes is moved by his singing and forceful personality so starts to view his world with very differently.

He also gets involved in helping those he had once lived off /exploited, as he becomes more aware of the plight of those who are being persecuted, he turns from being a self centred, money making merchant into a committed `freedom fighter'. The mosque is central to the whole thing and the leader there is played by Michael Lonsdale (`Of Gods and Men' and `Ronin') who as ever delivers an impeccable performance.

This film shows a remarkable part of history where the Muslims helped Jews escape the Nazi tyranny and as such should be praised for highlighting such a story, but it has got some critics, despite doing rather well on `Rotten Tomatoes' there are still some valid criticisms, one being the lack of tension. That could be because a lot of what takes place is ordinary every day life at the mosque, or the little on screen time of the Nazis and their ally Gendarmes'. This is much more character driven than action and that too could explain it being called `shapeless and sluggish- (The Daily Telegraph). I thought it was a quietly moving story that was directed extremely well by Ismaël Ferroukhi. The sets are all wonderful and full of colour especially the Mosque; some of the German uniforms I felt were a bit ropey but that is a minor gripe.

Overall this is one for those who like a bit of art in their films and is in French with fairly good sub titles, a quick search showed that a lot of what is featured in the film did actually take place, and is something I knew nothing at all about, not for action fans and not a real `war' movie for purists but a commendable effort all the same.

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.