The Other Side of History

Film Review: Les Hommes Libres Directed by Ismaël Ferroukhi, screenplay by Ismaël Ferroukhi and Alain-Michel Blanc, Pyramide Productions

History, as they say, is written by the winners.  Certainly that’s true when it comes to war.  Of course, whichever side wins not only gets to write the history, but also gets to be the hero and take all the heroic credit for itself.  But as we’ve seen over the years—especially when it comes to WWII—from Schindler’s List to Inglorious Bastards to Valkyrie, the unlikely and unsung heroes of war can come in every color, country, and guise… and will probably never stop coming.

That’s a good thing, because as much as war tears the world apart, it also brings unlikely factions together, factions that have themselves seem to have forgotten they were ever on the same side.

Among these is the little-known story of the Great Mosque of Paris.  During the German Occupation of Paris in WWII, the Muezzin and his fellow Muslims turned the Great Mosque into an underground railroad for Jewish families, children and resistance fighters, providing refuge for resistance fighters in its underground caves and tunnels, and false identify papers for Jewish families, claiming them as Muslim and helping to arrange safe passage out of France and away from the death camps.  

Sound unlikely?  That’s what young Algerian Younes, the small-time criminal and reluctant protagonist of Les Hommes Libres thinks too, when he’s caught by French police for dealing on the black market.  Deep into their collaboration with the Nazi occupiers when the film begins, the French police are convinced the Great Mosque is harboring Jews and resistance fighters, but they need proof.  In exchange for providing incriminating evidence, Younes can enjoy freedom to continue to scratch out his meager living on the black market without too much harassment from either the French or the Germans.  Such a bargain!  

Younes accepts the devil’s bargain and starts hanging around the Mosque, where he befriends the Arabo-Andalusian singer, Salim.  When he discovers Salim is not a Muslim but a Jew who has been given sanctuary at the Mosque, Younes must choose between his own safety and his friends at the mosque, including the benign muezzin Si Kaddour Ben Ghabrit, the mastermind behind the subterfuge and, in his own gentle way, one of Paris’ most formidable resistance fighters.

Advised by noted historian Robert Satloff, with events corroborated in the recently released La Grande Mosquée de Paris by Karen Gray Ruelle and Déborah Durland DeSaix, writer-director Ismaël Ferroukhi carefully builds his film on research and facts, even if fictionalizing some characters in the service of his story.  He reveals in small, tight shots the hardscrabble existence living on rations and fear in Occupied Paris; the tension in the underground clubs and parties the Parisian Muslim world enjoys, never knowing when the Nazis will change their minds and turn against them, too; the impact of all the Jewish families suddenly cleared out of the 11th arrondissement (see the plaques along rue de la Roquette).  The entire film is an advanced class in how to make a period film on a shoestring budget..  But for all these noble efforts, I can’t say that Les Hommes Libres is a particularly  groundbreaking film.

The brooding and intense Tahar Rahim, acclaimed for his titular role in The Prophet, is Younes, although his on-screen presence in this film is not strong enough to carry it on the back of his rather sparse dialog.  Michael Lonsdale brings his considerable experience and gravitas to his role of the muezzin Si Kaddour Ben Ghabrit, and Salim Halali, who in real life went on to become a huge pop star in Morocco, is sensitively portrayed by the distractingly green-eyed Mahmud Shalaby.  

Co-written with Alain-Michel Blanc, the structure of the film is conventional, if not predictable, and some of the dialog drifts toward cliché from time to time.  There is nothing that is groan-inducing, but it’s not brilliant either.  However, as a fascinating view into a piece of history nearly forgotten, the film is priceless.  The filmmakers have stated that they wish for this film to re-open a dialog that has been stalled for decades and commemorate the kindnesses and sacrifices once made for one another, not as Jews, not as Muslims, but as fellow humans, regardless of who writes the history in the end.

September 2011, Vingt Paris Magazine