French fare with Jewish flavour
THE beauty of film festivals is that they bring to us the new, surprising and offbeat movies that do not find a mainstream audience for a general release.
The Alliance Francaise French Film Festival – one of the most popular festivals showcasing overseas films which opened in Sydney and Melbourne this week – features 45 films and documentaries, including two unique French-Jewish historical films, one about a rabbi in early 20th-century Algeria, and the other about how Arab emigres helped to save Jews in Paris during the Nazi occupation.
Opening the festival is Declaration of War, a powerful drama selected as France’s official submission for the 2012 Academy Awards. Based on real-life events, Declaration of War is set around a young Parisian couple whose carefree existence is suddenly shattered by an unexpected twist of fate.
The Rabbi’s Cat is based on a five-part series of graphic comic books by French-Jewish artist Joann Sfar. At 31, Sfar is one of a new generation of French comic artists and acknowledges his debt to 1930s American animation styles. His directing credits include Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life.
Sfar wrote and co-directed The Rabbi’s Cat, so the animation is lovingly faithful to his striking visual style. However, the true delight of the film is how it cleverly frames questions of modern Jewish identity.
The fantasy story of widower Rabbi Sfar, his grown daughter Zlabya and their talking cat (who swallowed a parrot, thus it can speak) as they live in Algeria during the prewar years, operates in part as adventure story and in part as philosophical meditation on Jewish life.
For Jews, many of the film’s scenes are laugh-out-loud funny. Reviewers have described the film’s visual style as a cross between Tintin and Chagall, and compared it favourably to the Iranian animated film Persepolis. It won an award at the 2011 Annecy International Animated Film Festival.
With its talking cat, there are shades of the 1986 animated film An American Tail about a Russian Jewish mouse that emigrated to America.
By contrast, Free Men takes a direct dramatic approach. Set in occupied Paris in 1942, a young Algerian Muslim black-market trader Younes (Tahar Rahim) is enlisted by the French police to inform on activities at his local mosque (whose imam is played by Michael Lonsdale from Of Gods and Men). The politically naive Younes is gradually drawn into the intrigue and ends up supporting local Arab efforts of working with the Resistance to save French Jews.
Reportedly “inspired by true events”, the film is directed by Ismael Ferroukhi and makes a a conscious effort to show that Arab-Jewish enmity is not ordained.
The film provides a unique view – the Arab perspective – of a crucial period in French-Jewish history, although the narrative develops somewhat slowly and the limited production values pale against sharper French films set during this period.
Two of France’s leading contemporary filmmakers, Remi Bezancon and Mia Hansen-Love, will be in Australia as guests of the festival.
Bezancon will attend the festival’s gala launch and a Sydney screening for his latest movie, A Happy Event, which takes a poignant look at a young couple unprepared for the lifestyle changes of parenthood.
Hansen-Love will attend screenings of her new film, Goodbye, First Love, which follows the romantic journey of a young woman who is caught between the emotions of her first love and the more pragmatic nature of her current relationship.
The French Film Festival’s closing night film is the 1980 classic, The Last Metro, starring Catherine Deneuve, Gerard Depardieu and Jean Poiret.
The French Film Festival is currently screening at Palace cinemas until March 25. Bookings: www.affrenchfilmfestival.org.
REPORT: Don Perlgut
PICTURED: Scene from Ismael Ferroukhi’s movie Free Men, which is set in occupied Paris in 1942.