At The Movies
with an ad in The Jewish News
featuring our 2004 graduates!
Pushing For Peace
Congratulations,
Sara Norris
"Monsieur Ibrahim's') Omar Sharif stands up for
Arab-Jewish conciliation.
We are very proud of you
and all your accomplishments!
May your future be filled with
health, happiness and success.
MICHAEL FOX
Special to the Jewish News
Love always,
Mom, Dad, Chuck, Jordan, lack
Laura, Giulio, Justin, Drake & Luca
L
sample ad (4. 75" x 3" size)
ISSUE DATE:
May 21, 2004
AD DEADLINE:
May 13, 2004
SIZES/PRICES:
4.75"
4.75"
4.75"
4.75"
x2"
x3"
x4"
x5"
MI1111111111,
MENEM,
$45
'65
'85
$100
Additional sizes available upon request.
Please write your congratulatory message legibly.
Be sure to enclose photo if you'd like.
If you would like your photo back, please include a self-addressed stamped envelope
I is been 36 years since Omar
Sharif, playing Fanny Brice's suit-
or in Funny Girl, enraged the
Arab press by kissing Barbra
Streisand.
Now, Sharif gives another delectable
performance opposite a Jewish character,
in the resonant coming-of-age story .
Monsieur Ibrahim.
Playing a Turkish shopkeeper who
becomes a surrogate father to a preco-
cious adolescent in early 1960s Paris,
Sharif, 71, is unlikely to engender the
same wrath — even though it's impossi-
ble not to view the film through the
prism of current Arab-Israeli relations.
"I don't think [the film] is political,"
Sharif maintained during a recent pub-
licity stop in San Francisco. "If there
were peace now between Israel and the
Palestinians, it wouldn't matter [that the
boy is Jewish and the man is Muslim]. It
would be irrelevant. But what makes it
relevant is the fact that there is this terri-
ble situation there, and all this hatred
and bloodshed."
Sharif was born in Alexandria, Egypt,
and appeared in numerous Egyptian
films before his international break-
through (and Oscar nomination for Best
Supporting Actor) in Lawrence of Arabia.
His leading-man looks were also show-
cased in the high-profile 1960s films Dr.
Pierre Boulanger and Omar
Shari f in 'Monsieur Ibrahim"
`Monsieur Ibrahim'
Wise "Ibrahim" crosses cultures, generations and religions.
MICHAEL FOX
Special to the Jewish News
Check Enclosed for $
LJ Visa
MasterCard
Fl AmEx
Acct. #
Signature
Exp. Date
WE CANNOT PRINT YOUR AD WITHOUT THE FOLLOWING
INFORMATION, WHICH WILL BE KEPT CONFIDENTIAL.
Name
•
Telephone
Address
City
State
Zip
E-mail
Attn: Meg — The Detroit Jewish News
29200 Northwestern Hwy., Suite 110
Southfield, MI 48034
Phone: 248.351.5100 • Fax: 248.304.0049
020030
onsieur Ibrahim starts out,
like countless -coming-of-
age movies before it,
as an affectionately nostal-
gic, slightly risque chroni-
cle of an adolescent boy's
sexual awakening.
A precocious Jewish lad living with
his aloof father in a working-class
Paris neighborhood in the early
1960s, Momo (Pierre Boulanger)
seemingly has nothing on his mind
except losing his virginity.
But, in this beautifully acted and
profoundly resonant French film, we
are gradually carried with Momo into
deeper waters as events unfold. With
uncommon grace and a lack of
dogma, Monsieur Ibrahim persuasive-
ly makes the case that the distance
between people of disparate back-
grounds and ages is an illusion.
The unexpected agent of change in
Momo's life is a graying, soft-spoken
Muslim named Ibrahim (Oma-:
Shard), who runs the cramped shop
where the boy buys— and shoplifts
-- groceries.
Momo has no problem jus-
tifying his petty thefts. Fof
starters, every franc he saves
from the money his dad allots for
food shopping gets him closer to pay-
ing for one of the prostitutes who ply
their trade on the block.
Second, he doesn't see the shop-
keeper as a person but as "the other"
— a foreigner with strange rituals
and customs who has no life beyond
the long hours he spends in the store.
Momo's a little like the young
Duddy Kravitz, a handsome hustler
who's always working the angles and
thinks he's a lot smarter than he is.
He doesn't fool us and he doesn't fool
Ibrahim, who sees every pocketed
package.