Cast: Nicolas Cazale, Mohamed Majd, Jacky Nercessian, Ghina Ognianova
Director: Ismaël Ferroukhi
My Rating: *** 1/2 / ****
A young French-Moroccan boy was unwillingly drove his father to a pligrimage to Mecca. A long trip, doesn't it?. Well, here's the thing, they hadn't been in a good relationship. A generation-gap as you might say. The father was a stubborn, a hard-headed old-man, but had his own wise-ness. The boy was a short-fused teenager, impatient, sees himself as the center of all thing, and everything was his father's fault. Plus, as the father himself put it, "Even if you know how to read and to write, you had a zero knowledge of life". Their voyage thus began in a non-communication term, as they both seem to talk in a different language, but as you can see for yourself, blood is always thicker than water as both father and son began to grow and learn to respect each other. It was a wonderful movie that kept me engaged for 100 minutes.
The premise is much alike to the more famous "Monsieur Ibrahim". But my take, this movie is way better than the previous movie. Even its rather slow pacing doesn't bother me a bit. From East-Europe to the Far-East, from the zero degree white snow blanket in Belgrade to the hot in the desert sand, we see these two people evolve, as the boy grew more mature, the father had also grew respect to the young. On their voyage, they met with various people, a strange woman that creeps the hell out of the son, a Turkish man that the boy likes but the father loathe, and of course they also met with fellow pilgrims. Anyway, if you think the son was Muslim, then you're wrong. Well, at least he doesn't pray while his father and the other pilgrims were praying in the middle of the desert, but instead wrote his girlfriend's name on the sand. Even when they got to Saudi Arabia, the son asked his father, "Why was it so important for you to go to Mecca?".
Here, Reda, the son, the obvious boy in orange, was sit among his father and the other pilgrims.
Apart of the relationship between father and son that grew ever interesting which was the best part of this movie, the movie also has greatness in breathtaking views, from the European village, to Mecca itself (which literally takes my breath away), and the score was a beautiful ringing to my ear even if it was emitting the sound of sadness, and longing. And dont even ask me about the ending. I wouldn't dare to talk to you about it, even though i really wanted to. All i can say is, that the ending was.... .... .....
In the end, even though the characters are great, they really are great, no flaw on the character whatsoever, i think the hero of this movie is Islam itself, at least in term of the director's goal of showing the peaceful majority rather than the radical minority the media has transformed into a worldwide terror. But if you aren't interested in the religion-related stuffs, it would be fair if i said that this movie was one of the best gap-generation movie that i ever saw. Oh, better yet, i think this movie is one of the best movie in 2004. Shame on me, i hadn't knew about it earlier. Watch it.
P.S: One of the memorable quotes from this movie...
Reda: Why didn't you fly to Mecca It's a lot simpler.
The Father: When the waters of the ocean rise to th heavens, they lose their bitterness to become pure again...
Reda: What?
The Father: The ocean waters evaporate as they rise to the clouds. And as they evaporate they become fresh. That's why it's better to go on your pilgrimage on foot than on horseback, better on horseback than by car, better by car than by boat, better by boat than by plane.