MARK ZINGA IN MAY ALLAH BLESS FRANCE!

From hood to rap star, unblemished

Celebrated rapper and spoken word artist Abd Al Malik makes his directorial debut with the autobiographical coming-of-age story May Allah Bless France!, based on his published memoir about his early life. He starts out in in a cité of the Neuhof district of Strasbourg as a petty hood, though not of a dark sort, as the luminous young Congolese-descent actor Marc Zinga makes clear with his upbeat performance. And though he engages in pocket-picking and drug-dealing, Régis Fayette-Mikano (his birth name) clearly always was articulate and educated: one of his teachers is a big fan. Born Régis Fayette-Mikano to Congolese immigrants, he grew up in Strasbourg’s housing projects, participating in petty crimes that cost the lives of his friends. He found release in writing and performance, converting to Sufism at age 24 and penning the memoir that informed this adaptation. Marc Zinga is consistently engaging in the role of young Régis, movingly embodying his path to a better life. Shot in black and white, the film visually and thematically, in its early sections, recalls Mathieu Kassovitz’s seminal urban crime drama La Haine.

Abd Al Malik clearly knows his milieu and has cast and wrangled lively Arab, black, and white males who talk the lingo and have the speech rhythms of the Strasbourg ghetto. DP Pierre Aim does some tricky but understated things with zoom, and editor Kako Kelber keeps us awake with some lively transitions.

But engaging and fresh as this film is, it lacks something in the specifics. John DeFore's Toronto review for [url="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/may-allah-bless-france-quallah-732779"]Hollywood Reporter[/url] puts his finger on this when he warns that "Viewers expecting an 8 Mile-like experience from May Allah Bless France! should recalibrate." Abd Al Malik doesn't go to much lengths to show himself mastering or practicing the art of rap. Nor does he delve here very deeply into the life of crime he led as a lad. He does show briefly the serious consequences the crime brought to some of his comrades. But with the distancing effect of the black and white images and the schematic treatment of day-to-day events, May Allah Bless France! sometimes takes on an abstract, Brechtian quality. One emerges impressed favorably by Abd Al Malik and feeling positive about what he has been able to do, but the movie hasn't provided a very profound experience. The unique part -- still also a bit thematic -- is Regis' turn to Islam after the death of someone very close to him. There is a trip by the protagonist to an unspecified Muslim country where Qur'anic recitation is heard, and he says the Fatiha while sitting among mature holy men. It's also unusual that, following his devout Muslim faith, Abd Al Malik depicts his relationship with his sweetheart Nawel (Sabrina Ouazani)as chaste. Even their kissing comes only at a climactic moment, and film's ceremonial high point isn't so much the first big rap performance, though that is important, but the ceremony in which Nawel and Abd Al Malik are wed. But the rapper-director's piety seems to explain the film's unwillingness to depict the uglier side of his early life with graphic realism.

The one extended rap song, heard more than seen performed, is Tin Soldier/Soldat de plomb, an impressive and articulate piece that shows a mesmerizing sincerity. There could have been more.

May Allah Bless France!/Qu'Allah bénisse la France!, 95 mins., debuted at Angoulême, showed at a few other festivals, and won the FIPRESCI Discovery Prize at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival. The French theatrical release 10 December 2014 met with mixed reviews (AlloCiné press rating 3.1). Some were thrilled by the upbeat message; others thought the film called too much for immigrant homogenization, with its style correspondingly too generalized and generic. But notice the title: Abd Al Malik embraces his identity as, above all, not black, or banlieue, or Muslim, but a citizen of France, unified, new, and democratic. Screened for this review as part of the FSLC/uniFrance-sponsored Rendez-Vous with French Cinema at the Walter Reade Theater and the IFC Center in New York in March 2015, its North American premiere.

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.