Thursday, July 28, 2011

Le grand voyage (French Movie)



Just Watched the french Movie "Le grand voyage (2004) " - The journey from France to Saudi Arabia by A father and Son.Along the way the father and son will cross national borders, seas, even continents, but no distance is greater than the one they cross to come to terms with each other.


Original title: Le grand voyage

Year: 2004
Runtime: 1 hour, 42 minutes
Country: France | Morocco | Bulgaria | Turkey
Language: Arabic | French | Bulgarian | Serbo-Croatian | Turkish | Italian | English
Genre: Drama
Director: Ismaël Ferroukhi
Cast:
Nicolas Cazalé … Reda
Mohamed Majd … The father

Story :-
In this gentle road movie, a French Moroccan teenager (Nicolas Cazalé) is forced to drive his dad (Mohamed Majd) across Europe and the Middle East for the hajj, the traditional Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. The film's warm humor derives from the old man's obstinacy (he tosses his son's cell phone in a roadside trashcan) and the son's exasperated response to it. But the characters also represent the two poles of the European Muslim diaspora--the devout and tradition-bound versus the modern and secular. The movie is canny enough not to pick sides: By the time they reach Mecca, the kid's hip modernity has begun to look like a callow pose, and the man's stubbornness has come to seem quietly heroic. 

          “4 Stars! Remarkable…The characters are compelling and completely realistic, the acting is first-rate, and many scenes… are breathtaking.” The San Francisco Chronicle

                 “3 ½ Stars… A moving character study that builds to a surprisingly wrenching finale… 
            This movie is why we watch foreign films!” Minneapolis/St. Paul Star Tribune


             Winner, De Laurentiis Award, Best First Film, 2004 Venice Film Festival
             Winner, Golden Astor for Best Film, 2005 Mar del Plata Film Festival
             Official Selection, 2005 New Directors/New Films, Museum of Modern Art
                Opening Film, 2004 Dubai Film Fest 
              Winner, Bayard d'Or for Best Film, 2004 Festival de Namur


               



   In every dialectical point this road movie moves us much more than we could travel. It permits us to travel across sumptuous landscapes, situations and encounters that reinvigorate questions of origins, language, cultures and 

openness.

  We discover among the diversity a Mecca as we have never seen it , impressive scenes and premier story to take on Mecca alone. The director possesses a real classical sense of narration. The exchange between Reda and his father is unique 

 The simplicity of the film becomes its strength. The film ends by tearing away and staying far away from conventions, it comes to the heart of the matter by leaving it to the wind to trace a new invisible route.

*************  A must watch film for every film lovers  ****************


 

Will update my thoughts about the film in Tamil soon ,Please leave your comments , Ideas if any .


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