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Film Review: Les Hommes Libres

Image: Pyramides Distribution
Text: Susie Kahlich

History, as they say, is written by the winners. Certainly that’s true when it comes to war. Of course, whichever side wins not only gets to write the history, but also gets to be the hero and take all the heroic credit for itself. But as we’ve seen over the years—especially when it comes to WWII—from Schindler’s List to Inglorious Bastards to Valkyrie, the unlikely and unsung heroes of war can come in every color, country, and guise… and will probably never stop coming.

That’s a good thing, because as much as war tears the world apart, it also brings unlikely factions together, factions that have themselves seem to have forgotten they were ever on the same side.

Among these is the little-known story of the Great Mosque of Paris. During the German Occupation of Paris in WWII, the Muezzin and his fellow Muslims turned the Great Mosque into an underground railroad for Jewish families, children and resistance fighters, providing refuge for resistance fighters in its underground caves and tunnels, and false identify papers for Jewish families, claiming them as Muslim and helping to arrange safe passage out of France and away from the death camps.

Soirée Ramadan a l'Hotel de Ville

Jamel Oubechou, Director of Equality Promotion at la HALDE & President l'Institut des Cultures Islam meets Bertrand Delanoe. Image: Flora Boumia
Text: Ndali Amobi

In collaboration with La Maison des Cultures du Monde, the Mayor of Paris Bertrand Delanoë invited Parisians and visitors of all faiths and cultures to a special Ramadan celebration at the illustrious Hôtel de Ville.

Members of the public were able to pick up free tickets for a limited period, and around a thousand people, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, attended the event.

The evening kicked off with live music from a Tunisian Malouf group, followed by a buffet of canapés, baklava, dates and mint tea. The buffet was announced at sundown – a time for those practising Ramadan to break fast.

Maya At Musée Du Quai Branly

Image: Ricky Lopez Bruni/Museo Nacional de Arqueologia y etnologia, Guatemala
Text: Nicola Hebden

The Musée du quai Branly, under the watchful eye of the Eiffel Tower, is offering a unique and compelling exhibition of artefacts from the Maya up until the autumn.

Living in the area we would now recognise as Guatemala, the Maya people started to develop a complex and intelligent pre-Colombian culture from as early as 2000 BC. Parts of their culture still exist today.

The exhibition 'Maya: From Dusk to Dawn' takes the amateur historian on a chronological, semi-circular journey through the pre-classic, classic and post classic Mayan periods, culminating in a photo gallery of today’s Maya population in Guatemala.

Voodoo At The Fondation Cartier

Text: Rooksana Hossenally
Image: Fondation Cartier

In the exhibition Vaudou, the Fondation Cartier brings us the private collection of voodoo art belonging to the 'Indiana Jones' of the art world. Most of the details of this esoteric, some would say malefic, African religion remain lost in translation, but Jacques Kerchache's (1942-2001) private collection of bocio (the name for the sculptures used in Voodoo tradition, meaning "cadaver - cio - endowed with powers - bo") gives the audience a starting point, acting like a door left ajar and leading to a room that is plunged into darkness. It leaves us wondering whether or not we want to cross the threshold into a covert world of sorcery.

At the age of 21, Kerchache had already opened his own gallery. He was soon grabbed by the urge to find truly original art, to abandon all he knew and stretch as far as he could outside of his comfort zone.

Looking at a map of Africa, he decided he would head to a place with no roads, an area that remained blank on a map. “I wanted to find art that had never been seen before, so I went as far as I could until I couldn’t go any further, and ended up in a forest in Gabon. I was alone and I knew that I had reached the heart of Africa.”

Cracking Cranach At The Musée du Luxembourg

Text: Tristan Stansbury-Worthington
Image: "Allegory of Justice" 1537, Private collection.

All credit to Lucas Cranach. Against the high-pitched heckling of the audio guide vendors and the jostling, claustrophobic flock of busybody art lovers (the kind who like to stick their faces right up against a painting just when everyone else is looking at it and then have a really loud, protracted conversation with their companion while still standing between everyone else and the painting), the German Renaissance artist really managed to hold his own. But this is all mere child's play for the man who during his lifetime rose from lowly beginnings to become court painter to Frederick the Wise of Saxony (thereby earning himself a family crest), a Lutheran saint and one of the finest artists of the Northern Renaissance.

Cranach lived through one of the greatest periods of upheaval in modern history, both artistic and political. Not only was he a prominent figure in the development of the Northern Renaissance, but he just so happened to settle in the very city where Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to the church door and the Protestant Reformation began. Later he would be witness at Luther's wedding. So the exhibition's intention is a good one: to present Cranach's work within an artistic and historical framework, exhibiting his his work side by side with that of certain of his contemporaries, most notably Albrecht Dürer, as well as providing some enlightening explanation about the roles played by the many historical figures Cranach painted.

Irène Némirovsky At The Mémorial de la Shoah

Text: Emily Sands-Bonin
Image: Fonds Irène Némirovsky

The current exhibition on Irène Némirovsky at the Mémorial de la Shoah is a moving, tragic and exhaustive documentation of the life and career of a French-Ukrainian novelist, who achieved critical acclaim before being deported to Auschwitz where she died in 1942. Némirovsky’s unfinished last novel, Suite Française, received the Prix Renaudot posthumously in 2004. Suite Française has been translated into 38 languages and has sold 2.5 million copies. Her other novels, including Fire in the Blood, David Golder, The Ball, Jezebel and The Dogs and the Wolves have now been reissued and favourably reviewed by critics. The current exhibition on her life at the Mémorial de la Shoah reflects this recent resurrection of interest in her work.

While Irène Némirovsky is no stranger to the French literary scene, nor is she a posthumous newcomer. Those who can remember her original entry into the spotlight in 1929, at the age of 26 with the publication of David Golder (made into a popular movie in 1930) are now few and far between. Today, she is known primarily as a casualty of the Shoah and perhaps only secondarily as a writer, whose books are interesting and relevant in themselves, not only as documentation of the Shoah. It is cruelly ironic that her work would now fall into the category of “Shoah literature”.

Events at Théâtre de l'Odéon : Žižek, Ndiaye and Disiz

Text: Joanna Bronowicka

This Thursday, March 11, Théâtre de l’Odéon will host Slavoj Žižek, undoubtedly the most eccentric figure in contemporary philosophy. Originally from Slovenia, Žižek is a senior researcher at the University of Ljubljana and a professor at the European Graduate School in Switzerland, but he is often associated Paris VIII and philosophers Alain Badiou and Jaques Ranciere.  A declared atheist, who claims that “churches should be turned into grain silos or palaces of culture," he will give a lectured entitled Christianity between perversion and subversion. The growing popularity of Žižek cannot be explained by the accessibility of his writings - he mixes theories of Marx, Hegel and Lacan with references to the latest blockbusters or political scandals in an almost hallucinatory style. Witty and full of unpredictable twists and turns, his public lectures make philosophy a form of entertainment. 

The Festival de l'Imaginaire is coming to town!

Text: Brendan Seibel
Photo: Pepita Seth

The Maison des Cultures du Monde is presenting their fourteenth Festival de l'Imaginaire. Spread throughout the city, this multifaceted celebration of diversity marries traditional music, dance, theater and art from around the globe. With grand spectacles, roundtablediscussions, conferences and special presentations for students, there's something for everyone. Events begin mid-March and running for over a month. The curious can pick and choose between eighteen troupes and five exhibitions. Here are our top recommendations.

Krishnanattam

This musical play, originating from the southern India state of Kerala, tells the story of Krishna's life and ascension. Stylistically similar to Japanese kabuki, dancers perform carefully choreographed gestures and steps. Two singers, accompanied by gong, cymbals and other percussion, narrate the ancient Hindi myth. Rarely performed outside of its native region, executed by men raised in the theater, this performance is not to be missed.