FREE MEN/ LES HOMMES LIBRE

France, 2011, 99 minutes, Colour.
Tahar Rahim, Michael Lonsdale, Mahmud Shalaby.
Directed by Ismael Ferroukhi.

Free Men is a very interesting film about occupied Paris from 1939 to 1944. The director, Ismail Ferroukhi, has directed a number of films on Muslim themes, most particularly, Le Grand Voyage, the story of a young, quite secular, Muslim taking his devout grandfather by car from Marseilles to Mecca for the Haj.

This film is more ambitious. It focuses on a young Algerian migrant, Younes (Tahar Rahim, Un Prophete, The Past). He works in the black market and is asked to be an informer about the goings on in the mosque in Paris. He does so, with only a few qualms, but the experience leads him into a deeper awareness of his fellow human beings and he is rejected as an informer. The film shows a great deal of life in the mosque, especially with the leader, played with great dignity by Michael Lonsdale.

He buys an instrument from an old man who want cigarettes and then sells it to Salim, a very famous singer of Arabic songs, who performs at the mosque and at a club. In fact, he is Jewish and has a fake passport from the mosque. He is played by Mahmud Shalaby. The two men become friends.
Younes’ cousin, Ali, involves him in some activities of the resistance. This is especially the case after the young woman he was attracted to is arrested and taken for execution, when he delivers some fake passports only to find parents taken to prison and two little children left in his care, and he takes to the mosque. He also goes on a mission to hospital to rescue another resistance fighter and is involved in a car chase and a shootout. He joins the resistance, shoots a man in the street… And the film makes the transition to 1944 and the liberation of Paris. He has survived, visits the leader of the mosque, resumes his friendship with Salim.

In the final information, tribute is paid to the leader of the mosque and the work that he did to preserve Jews from imprisonment and death. It is paid to Salim and his reputation for singing, his establishing of a club in Paris, then in North Africa. The film states that the character of Younes is a mixture of many people like him who worked for the resistance and for liberation.

1. An interestingly different film about World War Two, occupied France, Algerian refugees, the plight of the Jews and the roundup in 1942? Few films made about these themes?

2. The information at the beginning, the migrant movement from Algeria to France in the 1930s, ending before the outbreak of the war? The Algerians bringing their customs, their desire for freedom, their religion? The mosque and the leader and the imam? The Jews, their being given fake Muslim passports by the mosque? The taking of the Jews to the concentration camps, the executions?

3. The Paris settings, the recreation of the period, costumes, the streets and homes, the mosque, the basements and hideouts for the resistance?

4. The musical score, the range of songs in Arabic? The importance of music? Morale-boosting? The clubs? Expressions of belief and hopes? The scenes of singing in the mosque, in this club, for the birthday celebration?

5. The focus on Younes, a few years in Paris from Algeria, his job, his getting tuberculosis, hospital? His involvement in the black market, cigarettes and other goods, selling them to the refugees, the old man selling his instrument for cigarettes, Younes selling it to Salim?

6. Younes and his cousin, contacts, the dangers, the resistance? Ali getting him to deliver fake papers? To go to the hospital for the rescue? In the shootout?

7. Younes on the street, the raid on the house, Younes being arrested, in the cell, being called out, the police wanting an informer, his going to the mosque, observing, reporting, the visitors, the head, the encounter with Salim, his singing, selling him the instrument? The beginning of a friendship?

8. Younes and his reporting to the police, the information, his dismissal, thrown out of the car, the threats?

9. Head of the mosque, discussing with him, knowing the truth?

10. The German officer, wanting the medal from Morocco, the director of the mosque leaving him on, telling him that he had to go to Morocco personally, and this after the Allied invasion of Northern Africa?

11. Younes and his going with the fake passports, the arrest of the parents, with the two little children, not knowing what to do, taking them to the mosque, the authorities’ refusing, the head and his accepting the orphans? The later rescue and their being put on the boat with the other Jewish refugees? Younes putting himself in danger for the children?

12. Younes and his attraction to the young woman, watching her, washing her hair, the discussion, asking her for a date, her not turning up, Ali telling him that she had been arrested, that she was a communist agitator in Algeria, her being condemned to death, her brother and the interrogation, her being put on the truck, Younes watching, the poster and the details of her execution?

13. Younes becoming more involved, going to the hospital, the cars and the pursuit, the shootings, in the field, Younes shooting, escaping? His later going into the street and shooting the man with the briefcase?

14. The two years of war, the transition to the liberation of Paris, Younes, older, the moustache, watching? His going to the mosque, being greeted by the leader? glad that he was safe? His going to see Salim? Watching him sing? The reconciliation? The tension before with Salim and his identity, Jewish, singing, his ambitions for the club?

15. The final information, the role of the head of the mosque and his sheltering the Jews, the information about Salim, his club in Paris, the club in North Africa? Younes as a character of many of the freedom fighters and resistance fighters?