Commentary on antisemitism in France
'This moving and insightful movie was made before the October 7 attack on Israel, but many of its reflections seem prescient.'
The French movie A Good Jewish Boy is playing at the Jewish International Film Festival, but the film’s French title Le Dernier des Juifs – The Last of the Jews – feels more apt.
It is about the last two Jews – Ruben Bellisha and his mother Giselle – who remain in a working-class suburb of Paris, which has become predominantly Arab and Muslim. The only synagogue and kosher butcher have closed, and Giselle is desperate to leave, but Ruben attempts to shield her from the antisemitism in their neighbourhood, from the graffiti on the wall, to the electrician who will not enter their home because of its mezuzah.
His ailing mother becomes concerned when war erupts with Israel, fearing that anti-Israel protests will come to their neighbourhood. But the film also interweaves moments of kindness between these Algerian French Jews and their Muslim neighbours.
This moving and insightful movie was made before the October 7 attack on Israel, but many of its reflections seem prescient. It is a commentary on French Jews feeling unwelcome in their neighbourhoods, as many have left for Israel and other areas in France. In the film, we see Ruben contemplate making aliyah to Israel. There are around 200,000 Jews in France and, according to reported polls, 68 per cent of French Jews feel unsafe in France and 38 per cent are considering aliyah.
The film is both light and funny as we watch an awkward 27-year-old Ruben, in the style of Charlie Chaplin, shirk responsibility for growing up, but also serious as it deals with Ruben’s predicament of losing his mother to illness and the prospect of him being on his own.
Discussing the inspiration behind the film, director and co-writer Noé Debré told The AJN, “In France, there’s been this discussion around Jewish people in the working class neighbourhoods, antisemitism, and how they’re moving away and why, and it’s been a political topic for a long time. And I realised that no films had been made about it and so it struck me that there was a movie to make.”
After the October 7 Hamas attack, Debré said their production questioned whether this movie should be released in January 2024, especially as the renowned actor who plays Giselle – Agnès Jaoui – was personally impacted. Two members of Jaoui’s family were killed at Kibbutz Nir Oz – Noya Dan, 13 and her grandmother Carmela Dan, 80, and three were kidnapped – Erez Kalderon, 12, his sister Sahar Kalderon, 16, and their father Ofer Kalderon, 53. Erez and Sahar have since been released. Jaoui’s parents lived on a kibbutz in Israel in the 1960s before emigrating to France.
Debré said that Jaoui told him that she did not want to delay the release because this film needed to be seen and she wanted to share her emotions about this attack. Jaoui told the press in French that she was shocked by the silence of “many people” after October 7, and “by the fact that even before the Israeli response, some people tried to justify the massacres, to say that it was their fault. It shows such ignorance and such inhumanity.”
On retaining the release date for January, Jaoui said, “If we are afraid of a film that talks about what we are experiencing, with intelligence, subtlety and even humour, the fanatics will have won.” She added that the film should be shown in the suburbs and high schools because “to give up dialogue is to give up humanity.”
To book tickets visit: jiff.com.au/films/a-good-jewish-boy
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