In a tender comedy, the filmmaker and humorist stages his own family confronted with the announcement of his conversion to Catholicism.
by Jacques Mandelbaum
Like Elie Semoun, who seems to want to say goodbye and set up accounts with his old father suffering from Alzheimer’s disease (MON OLD), GAD ELMALEH – also humorist, also famous, also Jewish Sepfarade – In turn, leads his parents into a film adventure. Of a completely different nature, remains a bit takes us into the moving sands of an uncertain aesthetic zone, between autobiography, self -fiction and mockumentary (“false documentary”). Subject: Gad Elmaleh returns to France after his stay in the United States, arrives with his parents with his suitcase, prepares his conversion to Catholicism on the Catimini and does not know how to tell them the news.
We see, in the case of such a canvas, to what degree of explosiveness had led him a Woody Allen, even a nanni Moretti, if the idea had come to convert to Judaism (we put the Copyright, in case). It is not the case here. Not that the film is devoid of humor. The return of the fifties to Papa and mom who prepared her child’s room for him. The clandestinity of his spiritual approach as a catechumen. The horrified discovery of the rose pot by the mother, who puts her hand on a statue of her rival (Marie) in the suitcase of her son. The counter-offensive led with the help of Gad’s sister and a pop rabbi. So many elements that contribute to the entertainment provided by this film, roundly and tenderly led.
We believe we can say, however, that the philosophical part of the project is more due to the heart of its author. Without being able to determine with accuracy the share of documentary authenticity of the “path” followed by Gad Elmaleh, we feel a strong intimate involvement. There is no need, in this regard, to be aware of the worldly chronicle of Gad Elmaleh, who, from the baptism of his youngest son until his trip to Lourdes, has been rustoring for a few years of signs attesting to a possible conversion .
vertigo of celebrity
And it is perhaps that alone, ultimately, that this film intends to speak, debating a question that the humorist may not yet have finished solving for himself, on the edge From a passage to which the film, at the same time playing its fictional partition, brings a conclusion of which the index of reality is unknown. At least he describes the main stages of a process. The enlightenment felt, as a child, in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary, during a sacrilege incursion in a church in Casablanca, and the feeling that she immediately brought her protection. The examples provided by these great converts that were Simone Weil or Jean-Marie Lustiger. The fruitful dialogue with Catholic circles, respectful of its Judeity. The fidelity preserved to the Jewish being even in this path which leads it towards a renewed faith. All this inspires, on the intellectual level, the greatest respect, but in fact explains quite badly the need for tearing which determined this movement, whose induced violence is largely reduced by the film.
You have 26.71% of this article to read. The continuation is reserved for subscribers.