Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by jamesgarvin (A) on March 21, 2005 at 11:24:36

Finally saw this last night. I find that there has been a little discussion of this film on this asylum, but not too much. Omar Sharif stars as a Muslim shopkeeper in a suburb of Paris (I leave it to Patrick to fill in the geographic details) in the early sixties. A teenage Jewish boy lives in a household with a somewhat inattentive father. As a result, the boy gravitates to the prostitutes who frequent the neighborhood, and to Sharif.

What follows is a flowering of a relationship between Sharif and the young boy. For those inclined to see such relationships strictly in sexual connotations, please save us your thoughts.

This is film in which much takes place under the surface of the film, in the past, that is not directly discussed in the film. In other words, it requires something from the audience. What happened to the young boys mother? What of Sharif's background? What of the young boys brother, whom his father keeps telling him about, but who he does not know? What does Sharif know of the boy's family that he does not tell? These are questions which I think the film deals with in rather vague terms, which places the audience at the level of the young boy.

There are several "events" which take place. I do not know whether intended or not, but there did not seem to be any emotional buildup to those events, or emotional investment in the story, so that when they happened, I felt like I was watching an event rather than being a part of that event, or that I had any emotional investment in the characters. Pleasant, but maybe a little sterile.

Sharif turns in a very good performance. It is nice to see that he is still around, and still has his chops. All in all, a very pleasant viewing, if maybe a little understated.