Before striking out for the hills of Anatolia near the end, Monsieur Ibrahim, confines its attention to the Rue Bleue, a narrow, slightly shabby street in a working-class section of Paris. Adapted from Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt's novel (which was also made into a play), this modest, sentimental film looks nostalgically back on Paris in the mid-1960's and casts a loving, oblique glance at the French movies of that era.
At one point, Brigitte Bardot herself (played by a latter-day cinema sex goddess, Isabelle Adjani) shows up to shoot a few scenes on the Rue Bleue, where she wins the envious admiration of the local prostitutes.
For its part, Monsieur Ibrahim, written and directed by Francis Dupeyron, has a deci-dedly new wave look and feel, with street-level, hand-held cameras and bursts of French and English pop music on the soundtrack (including, as it
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happens, Richard Anthony singing the praises of the new wave in nouvelle vague).
Much of the music issues from a radio belonging to Momo (Pierre Boulanger), a Jewish teenager who lives in a state of low-intensity domestic war with his cold, depressive father (Gilbert Melki). In search of affection, and eager to grow up, Momo, at the start of the film, breaks open his piggy bank to purchase the services of a prostitute named Sylvie (Anne Suarez). While she and her colleagues function, in classic French-movie fashion, as both lovers and surrogate mothers, Momo also finds a second father in the person of Ibrahim (Omar Sharif), who keeps a small grocery store across the street from Momo's apartment.
The story of their cross-generational, cross-cultural friendship is introduced by an anthem to universal brotherhood (one of the musical specialties of those days) called Why Can't We Live Together? The question has hardly lost its pertinence, and Dupeyron, without overt didacticism, turns the story of an elderly Muslim and his young Jewish protege into a parable of tolerance and understanding.
The two central performances help the lesson go down easily, and Duperyon's unassuming, slightly ragged realism gives the movie a sweet, lived-in charm. Sharif, grizzled and white-haired at 71, has lost none of the charisma that made him an international movie star in the 1960's, and Boulanger, in his first feature film, shows impressive self-assurance. Sharif's character is, in some ways, a dubious conceit; he is the selfless repository of exotic Eastern wisdom whose main purpose in life is to shepherd his young friend through life's difficulties. In a Hollywood melodrama, Ibrahim would most likely be a spiritually gifted black man. But Sharif is a wry and subtle actor, and he gives the cliche some humor and life.
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
Last week the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that the budget cuts voted for by the China-aligned parties in the legislature, are intended to force the DPP to hike electricity rates. The public would then blame it for the rate hike. It’s fairly clear that the first part of that is correct. Slashing the budget of state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is a move intended to cause discontent with the DPP when electricity rates go up. Taipower’s debt, NT$422.9 billion (US$12.78 billion), is one of the numerous permanent crises created by the nation’s construction-industrial state and the developmentalist mentality it
Experts say that the devastating earthquake in Myanmar on Friday was likely the strongest to hit the country in decades, with disaster modeling suggesting thousands could be dead. Automatic assessments from the US Geological Survey (USGS) said the shallow 7.7-magnitude quake northwest of the central Myanmar city of Sagaing triggered a red alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses. “High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread,” it said, locating the epicentre near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, home to more than a million people. Myanmar’s ruling junta said on Saturday morning that the number killed had
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