Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

Tedfoldol everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Dorathen Better Late Then Never

SanEat A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

kandit1 I would have rated this higher if it wasn't for the end of the movie. Not the part where the two characters see each other but after that which describes the true historical context.It was very disappointing to find out the main character we follow throughout the movie didn't exist. It was the two minor characters who were real people.With so much material for actual people and actual events from that era, I don't understand why you would make a movie where the real life people are supporting characters in minor roles. I much would have preferred the main character to have been real for, as I have stated, there are plenty to choose from.

Larry Silverstein The setting is Paris during the Nazi Occupation of World War 2. Tahar Rahim, after a powerful performance in "The Prophet", stars here as a young Algerian émigré making his living selling cigarettes and sundries on the black market. Rahim reminds me of a young Richard Gere and in my opinion has the potential to be a powerhouse in film.During a police raid, he is arrested but offered his freedom if he'll act as an informant at the local mosque. He agrees but is not very good at it and soon realizes his allegiance is more with the Muslim community than it is with the Vichy government.When a young woman, played by Lubna Azabel, who is being hidden at the mosque, and to whom Rahim is attracted, is arrested by the police and executed Rahim begins to work for the Resistance Movement, along with his cousin.As he soon learns, the director of the mosque, played by the wonderful actor Michael Lonsdale, is helping North African Jews, and others, obtain fake identities and sheltering them from the Nazis. This part of history I was not aware of and it was quite interesting to me.Rahim befriends an enormously talented local singer, played by Mahmoud Shalaby, and tries to protect him when the Nazis find out he is Jewish. The singing is the film is quite mesmerizing and adds to the enjoyment considerably.When Rahim's Resistance cell is uncovered he must, along with his compatriots, battle for his survival.In summary, I found this film to be well paced and quite engrossing, with enjoyable music and offers a lesson in history.

jakob13 Among the Righteous Among Nations at Yad Vashem, Israel's official memorial of Ha Shoah or Holocaust, the names of Arabs who saved Jews are absent. Even Morocco's Mohammed V, who, defying Vichy authorities, put his 650,000 Jewish subjects under the Sherifian throne's protection and saved them not only from wearing the dreaded Yellow Star but as a community, has no place among the Righteous. In his own way, Ismaël Ferrouki is trying to correct this historical omission.The Franco-Moroccan film maker's Les Hommes Libres or Free Men opened quietly at New York's Quad Cinema on Friday March 16. The film is set in Paris at a time of a great moral dilemma when Jews were being rounded up by the French police for extermination camps. And in this dark hour of French indifference to these arrested, the rector of la Mosque de Paris Si Kaddour Ben Ghabrit, subtly played by Michel Lansdale, provided certificates to mainly, but not exclusively, to North African Jews, which attested that they were Muslims. Bengharit plays a cat-and-mouse game with the Nazi authorities and the collaborationist Pétain representatives to give aid and comfort to Jews, whom, as he says, "are one of us."The presence of North African Jews and Muslims in France has much to do with French colonialism. For, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia were under France's control; the need for workers attracted North Africans to metropolitan France; money earned there would be sent back to support families.Ferrouki's conceit has become controversial; his theme is based on oral history, anecdotes and some written testimony. Algerian-born Jewish historian Benjamin Stora has acted as an adviser on Free Men. Owing to the current climate of fear created since 9/11 and growing criticism of Israel, the very idea of a picture about Muslim saving Jews might seem aberrant if not perverse. And yet, the wife of Holocaust survivor and Peace-prize Nobelist Élie Wiesel, herself saved by Tunisian Muslims has unsuccessfully appealed to have her benefactor added to the list of the Righteous. The film's moral authority centers around friendship among Ben Ghabrit, Younis , a black marketer, admirably portrayed by Tahir Rahm, and the Algerian Jewish singer Salim Halali (Mahmoud Shalaby, an Israeli Arab) who has the voice of an angel.Halali sings in Arabic. His songs' lyrics help move the film's narrative; they set the mood of war's terrors and dangers even though they are at heart love songs. To Americans, Jews singing in Arabic may seem an anomaly. Nonetheless, the Sephardim in North Africa spoke Arabic. Unfamiliar to Americans as well are the names, say, of the Algerian Enrico Macias, the blind Reinette l'Oranaise and the Moroccan cantor Sami El Maghribi, who sang in Arabic.Running through Free Men is the thread of resistance against Fascism and colonialism among a handful of French and Algerians. Some knowledge of French and North African history would be helpful here: the name of Messali El Hadj, considered the father of Algeria's nationalist movement, is central to Franco-Algerian resistance in fighting for democracy. El Hadj's manifesto considered Jew and Muslim equal and part and parcel of the Algerian community. His unfulfilled hope was that at war's end France would accord Algerians full and equal rights.Younes slowly comes around to joining the resistance. He sees in Salim, not a Jew, but an Algerian soul mate, a mirror of his own identity. Ben Ghabrit provides Salim the means of survival in order to outwit the French police after his arrest.The film's story is told with simplicity and convincing honesty. An old Moroccan palace was transformed into the Paris Mosque.Les Hommes Libres should be seen if only to see a slice of North African Jewish and Muslim fraternity. Perhaps, it is hoped, it may spur the American film goer to read about North African history.

Books New York FREE MEN was just screened to a sold-out crowd at the Rendez-vous with French Cinema in New York. It was a wonderfully acted, well told fictional film of Arabs helping resistance fighters (including North African Jews) during the German occupation of France during WW2.Dramatic and suspenseful, pitting collaborators versus resistance fighters, gestapo officials versus the authorities at a mosque.Given the ethnic tensions in Paris today, this film offers an alternate vision of unity in the face of oppression.Definitely worth seeing on the festival circuit or in art house release.