Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran | Review

Childhood journey teaches that the greatest thing in life is life itself.

Lightly comparable to Giuseppe Tornatore’s Malèna, French filmmaker Francois Dupeyron’s charming journey to the center of one’s soul is heavy material delivered with a fork-light and a bunch of fluffy pillows, except in this wanna-be tear jerker people get hurt and no one cares. Organically, the film is about losing something or someone in order to gain something else and this idea fits itself in the nature of the film’s events–as losing one’s virginity and a father to suicide weren’t enough, a young boy comes close to losing his faith.

Based on the novel by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, the film perhaps uses a little too much sugar-coating for its own good. Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran is a not too easy coming off age story, where one elder man known simply as “the arab” played by the delightful Omar Sharif (Lawrence of Arabia) and his beautifully worn day old white beard and imperfect smile becomes more than just a mentor for a young directionless boy.

Initially, the film contains plenty of charm with a setting in the underclass neighborhood of friendly prostitutes and cobblestone streets outside of Paris, where vinyl records and broken piggy banks exhibit a young boy’s world of escape, but when the film deals the boy one bad hand after another it hardly takes the time to take a breath. A handy book, as in the Koran, and a prophet whose store becomes the best place to knock off are there for the boy with open arms. Going by the nickname of Momo, the young Moses, played by a good looking kid in Pierre Boulanger, goes from simple-minded and testosterone filled to spiritually aware in this film journey which is about getting to the center of understanding. Sort of like a contemporary Paulo Coelho fable, the film feels good–the soundtrack, the décor, the hairdos and the addition of a bit movie-star part played by Isabelle Adjani (Bon Voyage) add some charm.

What is lacking in the narrative is what I call is a 400 Blows despair as a line of extreme circumstances are meet with an unshakable and overstated sappiness. It seems that the greatest lessons in life are quickly substituted by the film’s need to be slightly over romantic. The final act that sees the boy’s adoption, the purchase of a flaming red car for a tour of the Turkish man’s homeland and the storekeeper/storyteller’s final words of wisdom are a bit much for the sentimentality department. Rather than add to the minor strength of the film, it seems to downplay the events and doesn’t emphasize enough the more interesting part which sees this interesting discussion on religion between two principle figures of different histories.

Director of photography Remy Chevrin beautifully details the small spaces of the neighborhood and the vast emptiness of the Turkish landscape and gives a true sense to the notion of exploration of self and one’s surroundings. Dupeyron’s Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran certainly goes full circle but tries to hard to sentimentalize an already profound story.

Viewed in with French with English subtitles.

Rating 2 stars