Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran (2003)

Director:

François Dupeyron

Writers:

François Dupeyron (writer)
Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt (novel)
(more)

Release Date:

17 September 2003 (France)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

In Paris, a Turkish shop owner befriends a Jewish boy in his mid-teens.

Plot Keywords:

First Love | Film Production | Jew | Prostitution | Nouvelle Vogue

Awards:

Nominated for Golden Globe. Another 4 wins & 4 nominations

Cast

Omar Sharif	...	Monsieur Ibrahim
Pierre Boulanger	...	Momo
Gilbert Melki	...	Le père de Momo
Isabelle Renauld	...	La mère de Momo
Lola Naymark	...	Myriam
Anne Suarez	...	Sylvie
Mata Gabin	...	Fatou
Céline Samie	...	Eva
Isabelle Adjani	...	La star
Guillaume Gallienne	...	Le vendeur voiture
Guillaume Rannou	...	Le realisateur
Manuel Le Lièvre	...	Le moniteur auto-école (as Manuel Lelièvre)
Daniel Znyk	...	Le gendarme
Françoise Armelle	...	La maitresse d'école
Sylvie Herbert	...	L'eximinateur
Claude Merlin	...	Le notaire
Pascal Vincent	...	Le bouquiniste
Tessa Volkine	...	Myriam's Mother
Marie-Sophie Ahmadi	...	Nadia
Maryse Deol	...	L'employer administrative #1
Gérard Bôle du Chaumont	...	L'employer administrative #2
François Toumarkine	...	L'employer administrative #3
Sylvie Debrun	...	L'employer administrative #4
Önder K. Açikbas	...	Motocycliste
Jérémy Sitbon	...	Momo 8 ans
Eric Caravaca	...	Momo 30 ans

Directed by
François Dupeyron

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
François Dupeyron		writer
Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt		novel "Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran"
Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt		screenplay "Coran"

Produced by
Laurent Pétin	....	producer
Michèle Pétin	....	producer

Cinematography by
Rémy Chevrin

Film Editing by
Dominique Faysse

Casting by
Brigitte Moidon

Production Design by
Katia Wyszkop

Set Decoration by
Sandrine Mauvezin

Costume Design by
Catherine Bouchard

Makeup Department
Fabienne Bressan	....	key hair stylist
Cédric Chami	....	hair stylist: Ms. Adjani
Christophe Giraud	....	assistant makeup artist
Marie-Pierre Hattabi	....	hair stylist
Thierry Lécuyer	....	makeup artist
Muriel Martin	....	hair stylist

Production Management
Philippe Baisadouli	....	unit manager
Francis Barrois	....	production manager
Loïc Jouanjan	....	trainee unit manager
Pierre Jouille	....	assistant unit manager
Annie France Kaempf	....	post-production supervisor
Damien Lutringer	....	trainee unit manager
Pierre Vaysse	....	assistant unit manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Inès de la Bévière	....	second assistant director
Patrick Delabrière	....	first assistant director
Marie-Pierre Vau	....	trainee assistant director

Art Department
Didier Beauland	....	carpenter
Tristan Bivaud	....	carpenter
Thierry Champenois	....	carpenter
Marc Fivel	....	carpenter
Tristan Girault	....	property master
Alexandra Lassen	....	assistant art director
Guillaume Legrand	....	painter
Michel Masson	....	painter
Sandrine Mauvezin	....	set dresser (as Alexandrine Mauvezin)
Frank Morel	....	painter
Christine Rey	....	plasterer
Patricia Robin	....	painter
Marie Rossignol	....	key painter
Marc Rovere	....	assistant set dresser
Jean-François Sega	....	key carpenter
Didier Touvais	....	carpenter
Rimsky Vidal	....	painter

Sound Department
Katia Boutin	....	assistant sound re-recording mixer
Jean Dubreuil	....	sound editor
Judith Guittier	....	assistant foley artist
Gérard Lamps	....	sound re-recording mixer
Jean-Louis Lebras	....	boom operator (as Jean-Louis Le Bras)
Alain Lévy	....	post-synchronisation
Laurent Lévy	....	foley artist
Françoise Maulny	....	assistant post-synchronization
François Maurel	....	sound
Fred Messa	....	boom operator
François de Morant	....	sound
Francis Perrard	....	stereo sound consultant: Dolby
Isabelle Tat	....	assistant post-synchronization

Visual Effects by
Fabien Coupez	....	digital compositor

Camera and Electrical Department
Roger Arpajou	....	still photographer
Franck Barrault	....	gaffer
Pierre Chevrin	....	second assistant camera
Antonin Gendre	....	key grip
Frederic Halbutier	....	electrician (as Frédéric Halbutier)
Julien Humeau	....	additional grip
Elin Kirschfink	....	first assistant camera
Stéphane Martin	....	electrician
Renaud Monziers	....	grip trainee (as Renaud Monzies)
Laurent Pauty	....	second assistant camera
Christian Petrucelli	....	additional grip
Yvan Quehec	....	electrician
Carlos Ribeiro	....	additional grip
Mathieu Ungaro	....	grip
François-Xavier Walter	....	grip

Casting Department
Marie-Sylvie Caillierez	....	extras casting
Yvan-Scott Ducourau	....	casting assistant
Lofti Mokdad	....	extras casting
Yann Le Boucher	....	extras casting assistant (uncredited)

Costume and Wardrobe Department
Anne-Sophie Daniel	....	wardrobe assistant
Isabelle Ledit	....	wardrobe assistant
Virginie Le Metayer	....	costumer
Bernard Minne	....	wardrobe assistant
Laurence Royer	....	costume supervisor

Editorial Department
Elise Fievet	....	assistant editor
Hervé Gouband	....	color timer
Fabienne Morel	....	assistant editor

Music Department
Valérie Lindon	....	music producer

Other crew
Christèle Bonnard	....	production administrator
Nicole Cobac	....	production administrator
Geneviève Dufour	....	script supervisor
Nana Otte	....	production secretary
Robert Polonia	....	groupman
Joëlle Rignault	....	assistant production administrator
Harmel Sbraire	....	coach: actors
Christian Thurot	....	groupman

Production Companies

• ARP Sélection
• France 3 Cinéma

Distributors

• Cinema Mondo (2005) (Finland) (theatrical)
• Falcom Media (2004) (Germany) (theatrical)
• Filmhouse (2004) (Mexico) (theatrical) (subtitled)
• GAGA (2004) (Japan) (theatrical)
• Gateno Films (2006) (Peru) (theatrical)
• Mongrel Media (Canada) (theatrical)
• Monopole-Pathé (2003-2004) (Switzerland) (theatrical)
• Prooptiki (2004) (Greece) (theatrical)
• Sony Pictures Classics (2003) (USA) (theatrical) (subtitled)
• ARP Sélection
• Columbia TriStar Films de Argentina (2005) (Argentina) (all media)
• Impuls Home Entertainment (2004) (Switzerland) (DVD)
• LK-TEL (2005) (Argentina) (DVD)
• LK-TEL (2005) (Argentina) (VHS)
• Lucky Red
• SPI International (Czech Republic)
• Universum Film (UFA) (2004) (Germany) (video)
• Wanda Visión S.A. (Spain)
• With Cinema (Korea)

Other Companies

• Cinésyl  grip equipment
• Dovidis  sound editing
• Key Grip Systems  grip equipment
• Tapages  sound equipment
• Transpalux  electrical equipment

Also Known As:

Momo (France) (working title)
Monsieur Ibrahim (USA)

MPAA:

Rated R for some sexual content.

Runtime:

Canada:94 min (Toronto International Film Festival) | USA:95 min | Argentina:96 min

Country:

France

Language:

French | Turkish

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital EX

Certification:

Taiwan:R-12 | Switzerland:12 (canton of Zurich) | Hungary:14 | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Brazil:12 | Canada:G (Quebec) | Finland:K-11 | Germany:6 | USA:R | Singapore:M18

Company:

ARP Sélection

Quotes:

Momo: You're circumcised too?

Movie Connections:

Featured in The 61st Annual Golden Globe Awards (2004) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Allo... Maillot 38-37

A film of singular grace

Monsieur Ibrahim (the American distributors have left out the "flowers of the Koran") is from a novel that was made into a play by a popular writer named Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt. The French editor's blurb goes like this: "Paris in the 1960s. Momo, a twelve-year- old Jewish boy, befriends the old Arab grocer living on Blue Street. But appearances can be deceptive: Mister Ibrahim is not an Arab, Blue Street is not blue, and maybe the lad is not Jewish..." This is the coming of age tale of a boy who, when his depressed father runs away and throws himself under a train, is adopted by an old "Arab" shopkeeper (actually Turkish) who has become his adoring mentor and solace.

Moïse, nicknamed Momo (Pierre Boulanger), gets laid on his birthday with one of the cutest of the prostitutes who line the street where he lives. He goes back and forth to school and at home fixes dinner for his sad, stingy dad and gets the food from Ibrahim's épicerie down below. Momo's a sweet boy who's full of the joy of life and finds his father's grimness annoying. He gets little revenges like hogging the toilet when dad's laxative is kicking in. The movie is intimate and lovingly textured. Everything happens in the crowded Parisian street. It's summer. Momo puts on a thin white shirt over his undershirt and rehearses his opening to the whore: "Quelle chaleur! C'est combien?" ("What a scorcher! How much do you charge?") The light is beautiful. Pedestrians flow on the narrow sidewalk. The camerawork hugs the scenes, intimate but unobtrusive. Momo has to make his own birthday celebration: he's sixteen in the movie, so it's legal for him to go with one of the ladies. His sexual initiation is sweet too, simple, not saccharine. His father is always comparing him unfavorably with a missing older brother Popol ("Paulie") who was bookish. But Popol didn't have to do the shopping and fix dinner as Momo has to because his mother has left them. Momo doesn't remember Popol. Monsieur Ibrahim says he likes Momo 100 times better than Popol. Later it seems Popol never really existed. . .

It's hard to describe this film - which the 71-year-old Omar Sharif came out of retirement to star in and persuaded François Dupeyron to direct. It's a delicate thing, gossamer light, yet unforgettable. To tell its story is to break a butterfly upon a wheel. As in Manuel Pradal's 1997 Marie Baie des Anges, which also has a classic, mythic quality, its evocation of period is effortless. Both films exist in a Fifties or Sixties time that's all the more pungent because never broadcast -- except through irresistible period music. The little lessons M. Ibrahim teaches Moïse ("I know what is in my Koran") may seem clichéd. The stark and exotic direction the story takes later on in its 85 minutes may seem incongruous after the classic Frenchness of the opening scenes. But the movie conveys its mood and period with a deft simplicity no American director would be capable of. When a New Wave movie scene is shot in the street with Brigitte Bardot (reincarnated a bit incongruously, but vividly, by neo-diva Isabelle Adjani), it's a blissful moment of déja vu.

This film achieves its perfection by not seeming to try, with tossed off gestures: Ibrahim giving Momo cat food to pass off as a terrine de compagne for his dad with stale bread and cheap wine to dilute his Beaujolais so he won't complain about the cost; Momo smashing his piggy bank for the 35 francs to pay the prostitute; a group of men suddenly appearing around Ibrahim at a cafe table in Turkey.

Dad disappears after getting fired, leaving his savings on the table. Momo is undaunted. He plays soccer in the street with his schoolmates, learns to dance outside with the Jewish girl across the way, and continues his life lessons from Monsieur Ibrahim, who senses something wrong.

Ibrahim is grizzled, with bad teeth, but his outlook on life is beautiful. Momo has a singular grace; he seems to float across the screen, a delicate presence. He's pretty, he's cocky but vulnerable; he's light on his feet. When Ibrahim buys him a new pair of shoes, he twirls and flies through the air. The film itself skips along at first, then takes on a real-time slowness.

Ibrahim adopts Momo, buys a red sports car for cash, and drives through Greece and Albania to Turkey and his ancient home, where he leaves Momo by the road to go ahead, crashes the car, and dies in a house stacked full of kilims. These events turn the film toward the feel of a fable, something, perhaps, by some Moroccan novelist writing in singing, biblical French.

Earlier (but at this point in the book) Momo's mother comes looking for him, but he poses as a boy housepainter named Mohammed. He is already playing at being the "Arab" on the street, which is what he becomes, inheriting Ibrahim's store and all his wealth, choosing to live the rest of his life with a gentle irony by Ibrahim's motto, "Slowness [la lenteur] is the key to life."

There may be a little too much "lenteur," but many things make this movie sing: its lightness, the flow of the editing, the beauty of the photography, the charm of Sharif and Boulanger. There's a scene of whirling dervishes toward the end of the two guys' odyssey that's not like anything else you've seen in the movies. The camerawork is simple, handheld, timeless yet evocative of the period; the tones are fresh and saturated. There's an early shot of Momo in a red shirt standing in the window with a flowered curtain that's unforgettable. The color!

Thanks to Omar Sharif for getting this project made. There are moments in Monsieur Ibrahim, especially during the first half hour, that have that blessed rightness shared only by cinematic classics.

Likely to be one of the year's best.