If movies can truly make a difference, then the timing of the soulful French wartime drama “Free Men” couldn’t be better.
Based on historical events, the engrossing second feature film by the Moroccan-born director Ismael Ferroukhi reveals the largely forgotten efforts of the director of the Mosque of Paris, Kaddour Benghabrit, to assist the Resistance and save Jews during the Nazi occupation in 1942.
With contemporary Muslim-Jewish tensions in France and elsewhere an ongoing cause of concern, “Free Men” provides a deeply felt reminder that both peoples are capable of performing brave and righteous acts when faced with mindless racism.
“It’s true that I wanted the film to have an echo today, and to echo in the Arab and Jewish relationship that most of the time we believe is nonexistent,” Ferroukhi said in a phone interview.
“Free Men” opens April 6 at the Lumiere in San Francisco and the Shattuck in Berkeley.
The film’s main character is a young, street-smart Algerian who sells black-market goods in wartime Paris. Arrested by the police, Younes (Tahar Rahim) is given a choice: Go to jail, or turn informer and report on the goings-on at the mosque.
“Free Men” is a classic story of political awakening in which a callow protagonist encounters a cause and discovers a purpose larger than himself. With the wise, low-key guidance of Benghabrit (played with equal gravitas and softness by Michael Lonsdale), Younes finds himself helping Jews — in the process moving from selfishness to selflessness.
Along the way, he also becomes friends with a gifted Algerian singer with his own secrets, Salim Halali, an actual historical figure played by the Israeli actor Mahmoud Shalaby and dubbed in the musical sequences by the Moroccan vocalist Pinhas Cohen. If this provides a clue to what Salim is hiding, so be it.
Ferroukhi’s interest in the Mosque of Paris and Benghabrit began when he read an magazine article about the mosque’s efforts during the Nazi occupation to hide Jews and Resistance fighters. Ferroukhi’s research led him to stories of a thriving community of North Africans in Paris before the war, which he had known nothing about. He read about the establishment of the mosque and its wartime leader, Benghabrit, a complex and deeply religious man who risked his life to save a broad range of people — Jews, freedom fighters from North Africa, and workers for the French Resistance.
“The Northern African population believes, most of the time, that relations between Arabs and Jews never existed,” Ferroukhi said. “In our research, we discovered exactly the opposite — there were relations. But that memory has faded, and was deleted from collective memory. And that is due to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
“There was literature as well as music that dates to Andalusia, where the Arabic, Jewish and Christian [peoples] created culture together.”
Younes is also introduced to the nascent Algerian independence movement. “Free Men” subtly but unmistakably acknowledges the betrayal of the Algerians along with the thousands of others from France’s North African colonies who fought in the war and were denied the recognition, rights and respect they deserved.
But the soft-spoken Ferroukhi, speaking through an interpreter, downplayed the suggestion that “Free Men” is intended to incite younger moviegoers to be politically engaged.
“The movie is not about the need for action, but history reminds the new generation of the need to act,” Ferroukhi said. “We can take a lesson that people from different [backgrounds], from different regions, unite for a common goal against a common enemy. I am not here to give any lessons to anyone. I learn from history and other people will learn — I don’t teach.”
Indeed, when Ferroukhi told a Jewish friend who worked on his first film, “Le Grand Voyage,” that Kaddour Benghabrit was the focus of his new project, the man exclaimed, “No way — that’s the man who saved my grandma.”
“It’s stronger than history,” Ferroukhi said quietly. “It’s intimacy.”
“Free Men” opens April 6 at the Lumiere in San Francisco and the Shattuck in Berkeley. In French with English subtitles. (Unrated, 99 minutes)