Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Micitype Pretty Good

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Armand a seductive film. first for its flavor. a delicate - precise adaptation. and the bricks of an Oriental fairy-tale. one of impressive roles of Omar Shariff and a wise speech about values, truth and deep side of happiness. a film about friendship as key of life sense. a movie about small things. and about the root - book of each existence. a form of delight and wise manner to discover reality. and inspired art to use symbols - the clouds, the dance, the books. one of that adaptations who makes the source better, giving to it a special form of light, new nuances, more convincing marks. short, a good occasion of reflection and meeting with rare form of beauty of images, dialogs and atmosphere. an oasis, remembering cultural lines, inspiring peace and refined optimism.

Flagrant-Baronessa In the first scene of the film, 12-year-old Moïse walks down the hot backstreets of Paris on Rue Bleue, summer sizzling in the background, and loses his virginity to a pretty prostitute. The same-titled novel by François Dupeyron opens also on this bold note, setting the blunt no-nonsense tone and approach for the story. It explores the friendship between young Moïse and old Monsieur Ibrahim "the Arab on the corner" and unlike the majority of French cinema, it makes no pretense about it. It is merely a gentle look at how two people cultivate an unlikely father-and-son relationship.Because Moïse is a Jew and Monsieur Ibrahim (Omar Shariff) is a Muslim, the film pins cultural contrasts and issues of tolerance somewhere in between them, juxtaposing their different personalities through the use of insightful dialogue (the observation about trashcans in different districts comes to mind). Yet for a film primarily about beliefs and outlooks, it never preaches or falls prey to moral messages, which is endlessly refreshing. It does, however, feature a lot of religious undertones throughout and by the time Ibrahim starts teaching Moïse about the Coran, you know the film is about to take a standpoint.Omar Shariff allegedly came back from retirement to do this low-key film and his dedication to the content shines through in his wonderfully charismatic performance; he is a Morgan Freeman buddy type character and he manages this good-natured persona with effortless conviction. Pierre Boulanger who plays the young boy Moïse is certainly less convincing – not quite capturing the inherent loneliness or idealism of his character that explain why he seeks out prostitutes or befriends the "local Arab". Thankfully, Shariff more than makes up for the latter's lack of skill by being the propelling force behind their dynamic friendship.Although Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran is largely a character-driven little film, its style and cinematography are elegantly expressed – clear-eyed and blunt at the same time as it manages to convey the dreamy steamy atmosphere of a hot summer day in Paris. Upon shifting to Middle Eastern setting, it features gorgeously striking dusty plains and mountains. A device for the dreamy tone is the consistent use of a particular 1960's song (the film takes place during the 1960's) which invests the whole film in an almost lyrical flow.There is little wrong with the film and I greatly appreciate the direct approach to story (only a few introspective moments), but it is so low-key that it becomes forgettable. It does not claim to be important, and therefore isn't. It isn't a memorable product and it does not always manage touching, which renders it unremarkable. 7 out 10

thinker1691 " Monsieur Ibrahim " is a touching film which tells the tale of Moses, played by Pierra Boulanger, a 14 year old Jewish boy living in Paris during the 1960'. Abandoned to the ambivalent care of his father by an equally absent mother, Moses strays into the world of the Teenager and yearns to enjoy his budding maturity. Befriended by 'the Arab' played by Omar Sharif, who is a Muslim, the innocent teen is instructed, advised and counseled on the secrets of life. Somewhere between the Koran and the amorous attentions of Parisian prostitutes, the boy learns that shoplifting and sex are incidental. What is confusing is the fact the director and his film were not attacked, burned, vilified and morally assaulted by outraged Feminist groups from European countries and America. Had this film been about a fourteen year old girl, having sex with a half dozen adults, then befriended by a foreign older man who then adopts, and takes her East, Christian groups would have assailed it as child pornography. But as it was a boy, the film garners little of their attention and slips quietly into film history as a blending of cultures and the honoring of a special tradition

tedg Storytelling is not a simple affair. Unless all you want to do is fill space, it is not enough to just take one or two (usually two) characters and draw them as they draw their situations. I know that some matchbook writer schools say to do just that, but our imaginations need more to get engaged.I do not know the book from which this originates, but I am rather sure that it didn't take the storytelling shortcuts we see in the movie. In fact, I think we can reconstruct the book's backbone from artifacts we have left, strewn throughout the movie.We have a bookish father, a rather serious scholar who is trapped in a menial job, probably in a book-related enterprise. We can infer as well that his Jewishness is what sets the barrier to advancement and produces the later termination and suicide. We have a decidedly non- bookish son, it seems someone actually dull. So instead of the father passing wisdom from his books to the son, we have a disconnect.The son is the narrator, more precisely the narrator is tied to the son's vision. Because that vision is broken, the narrator is untrusted, and we see two versions of a story after the piggybank affair: one in which he remains poor and another in which he lives a fantasy with a prostitute.That untrusted nature pervades the story itself: there is a story about an older son, someone whose existence even the shopkeeper acknowledges. We in fact see a photo of two children. But in a remarkable scene, the mother returns and the boy presents his own, contrary, story while she speaks similarly.So at root, it is a book about books: The "Jewish" (and western) books don't connect. In fact, they are sold to procure sex. The Koran does connect, and much is made of our boy's receiving and adopting it. It connects not because if its intrinsic content, but because a human (a "sufi" shopkeeper) created the bond. Along the way, we see our otherwise poor student become a master teacher when helping pass the driver's test.So we'd have a book about warring books, connecting with the reader through personal metaphor just as the story within connects the personal through books. I call this "folding," and imagine it to have been the construction of the original book. But none of that is here. All of it has been washed away and replaced with actor's mannerisms, disconnected scenarios and cheap sentiment. Sharif should have known better, especially if he understood the story.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.