Free Men (Les hommes libres)

This film is interesting because it is about the Muslim community in Paris during the second world war. It concerns a small-time dealer, Younes, in the black market who becomes politicised. Younes is played by Tahar Rahim who impressed us in Jacques Audiard's A Prophet and here he is excellently cast, having the right blend of youthful innocence and disengagedness. ````

Michael Lonsdale plays the head honcho of the mosque where much of the film is set, doing his best to keep the Nazis on-side, playing a part very similar to his part in Of Gods And Men, and looking similar.

In addition, there is a Muslim singer who sings in a style that is very similar to flamenco.

The film tells a story having elements we have seen many times before - unsympathetic Nazi Germans in trilby hats and long, leather overcoats, black Citroen Traction-avants bulging with bulging-overcoated men. Although the film is set in wartime Paris I thought that more could have been done with the cinematography to render the setting more vividly. Also, the telling of the story was quite prosaic. If I used stars I would give it three.