" 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
Review of Monsieur Ibrahim
