Celia Gurevitch Jewish Community Library

Looks like I still can learn how to project films correctly. This time the movie’s on-screen proportions were not correct. Firs we played it with 4:3 ratio. Then we tried with 16:9, which gave an even more elongated view, so we switched back to the 4:3. According to the DVD’s cover we should have used 1.66:1, but that was not an option. In fact there were no more options on the DVD player. As a member of the audience remarked people are taller in France, so it is OK to see them narrower.

Despite this technical glitch all six of us seemed to have enjoyed Monsieur Ibrahim. Last week our movie (Edges of the Lord) was more Catholic than Jewish, while this week it was more Sufi/Islam. Nevertheless both had one Jewish character as their protagonist, so I feel justified showing them. There are certainly lessons in it we could all use, e.g. “Slowness is the key of happiness,” or “They [the Sufi dervishes] spin around their hearts because God is there.”

Let me share the movie’s poster from the official website, because it shows the atmosphere,