Monsieur Ibrahim  is set in 1963 Paris, and tells the story of a teenage Jewish boy named Moses (Pierre Boulanger), who is growing up practically alone and neglected in the city's Jewish neighborhood. At the beginning of the film we see him gazing out his window longingly at the parade of streetwalkers lining his street. These are the types of cinematic prostitutes who look impeccable and seem to have hearts of gold, yet still retain an air of sadness about them. He breaks his piggybank open and, aided by the money he skims away from his continually absent father, loses his virginity to a warm-hearted prostitute named Sylvie, initiating himself into adulthood with an object of teenage lust and fascination. This act begins the film, presenting the audience with a handsome, lonely young boy who has just crossed the perceived threshold into manhood, only to realize throughout the course of the film that the constant neglect he endures compounded with his lack of a reliable father figure or loving family situation has left him bereft of kindness and emotional warmth.

Moses's father is present throughout the film's first act, and we see that he isn't exactly a monster. He is simply a gentle, neglectful, and selfish man whose sole interests supercede any potential relationship he might develop with his son. He sends Moses to the local "Arab" grocery for food, run by a kind-hearted Turkish Muslim named Ibrahim (the great Omar Sharif). Moses often shoplifts from Ibrahim's store, and Ibrahim allows him to do so, indicating that he'd rather see him shoplift at his store than somewhere else, which might end the boy up in serious trouble. Over time, the teenage Jew and the elderly Muslim develop a small friendship that develops into a warm bond. Ibrahim teaches Moses how to hang on to most of his grocery money by instructing the boy to buy cat food and serve it to his father as pate, and to purchase stale bread and warm it in the oven to make it seem fresh. Ibrahim becomes the father figure that Moses (now called "Momo" by Ibrahim) never had and, in turn, Moses's youth and earnestness awakens a sense of life and adventure in the old Turk.

Monsieur Ibrahim is a sweet film, and an honest one, but it doesn't hold much in terms of surprises or complexity in its narrative flow. In short, the development of its storyline is quite predictable. There are plenty of life-lessons and gentle wisdom to be gleaned from the relationship between Ibrahim and Moses, but in the end we have a simple tale of love and bonding between two figures of seemingly opposing religious ideologies (although Moses's Jewish background is highly downplayed, and Ibrahim's Sufism is hardly the most fundamentalist branch of Islam), a coming-of-age story that is emotionally honest but nothing we haven't seen before, and a road trip that represents a journey of awakening and understanding which is too brief to tackle anything but the most generalized platitudes of brotherhood and fatherhood.

That's not to say that I didn't like Monsieur Ibrahim at all. Overall, the film is rather slight but mostly quite enjoyable. What make the film work are its honesty, its recreation of 1960s Parisian life, and the magnificent acting provided by both Sharif and Boulanger. The film hinges on whether or not the viewer has a vested interest in the relationship between Ibrahim and Moses. Sharif is understated and wise, providing a warm and endearing performance, but the real surprise is Boulanger, who makes Moses into a flesh-and-blood teenage boy, and not simply some precocious cinematic creation or a wide-eyed fish-out-of-water. His sadness and loneliness are conveyed beautifully without a single over-emoted performance or utterance of painfully melodramatic dialogue. Both characters seem real and natural in a film that puts them through some fairly routine plot devices. For that alone, Monsieur Ibrahim is worthwhile.

The DVD

Video:

Taking Sides is presented in a widescreen aspect ratio of 1.66:1, and has been anamorphically enhanced for your widescreen-viewing enjoyment. This is a warm, lovely-looking transfer that seems to radiate with the golden browns of 1960s Paris. Colors are subdued but warm, with sharp contrast levels and deep blacks. Image detail is smart, offering up a sharp and well-defined picture. Compression noise is non-existent, and only a smidgeon of slight edge-enhancement is noticeable. Overall, this is a lovely looking picture.

Audio: