seamus275 Within a few generations, we, in the West, have managed to allow – demand even – that fathers modify their traditional absoluteness with some mothering qualities. But there is an older tradition, portrayed in this film, of the Patriarch: enigmatic and absolute who represents the absoluteness of reality to which there is no appeal. The film opens with an encounter between the son of a Moroccan immigrant family and a slightly older man, the owner of a car breakers yard. The older man, who is from the same culture, demands respect and deference – something which the younger man refuses and which the older man patently does not deserve. This struggle between the business owner and the son, sets the contrast for what happens when the young man gets home.He is met by his mother who scolds him for being so long and who is clearly caught between the son and his father – her husband – who has been waiting for the son's return. It is for her to express a protest that the son has kept his father waiting, the father does not voice such sentiments. He tells the son that his older brother has just been released from police custody, after driving whilst under the influence of alcohol. The brother will lose his licence. The youngest son therefore, will now have to drive his father from their home in France, to Mecca. They leave in the morning. This information is given to the son using not one word more than necessary and in a way which leaves no room for protest or even thought about whether this can happen. Tomorrow, they leave.It is the old man's intention to complete the hajj before he dies. The following morning, he instructs his disgraced eldest son to take care of his mother and sister. Any goodbyes to his wife, must have already been made. Their relationship is one where whatever affection there might be is never on public display. And, indeed, there may be none. He leaves his wife as the English nobility left their country estates for the season: with all the 'staff' lined up to see them go. The son has voiced his protest to his mother. He is due to take his exams, exams which he has already failed and this is his last chance. He could leave the family, he tells her vehemently. But this threat is an empty one. There is no question that he is going to take his father to Mecca. It is natural, in our tradition, for our sympathies to be with the son, although it should be born in mind that this would not be the case for many men – and perhaps also women – from the father's culture. At first, the film makes this easy. It is possible to see the father as a selfish tyrant, careless of his son's future, whose only interest is his own selfish pursuit of personal salvation. He cares nothing for his son or what he may be feeling. Indeed, when the son finally stages a protest during the journey, the father seeks him out – no mean thing since it means climbing to the top of a high hill, for this old and infirm man. He tells the son that he no longer needs him so, if the son does not want to continue, he can leave in the morning and the old man will make his own way from there. There is no affection in this statement, no acknowledgement of kinship, no regret at parting. You would talk this way to a stranger to whom there were no debts or outstanding ties. It may be that the old man was making this point about the son's behaviour.The first point at which the film reveals that there are depths inside this old man is when, on some desert country road, an old woman stands hitching a lift. The son does not want to stop but the old man insists. When asked where she wants to go, the old woman points forward and says a word which the two men take to be a place name. But, on enquiring in the next town about the location of this place, no-one has ever heard of it. Still, the woman points forward saying the word, much to the son's increasing unease. It is possible to understand the old man's insistence on answering this woman's appeal as based on his recognition of the reality of another's desperation and this immediately undermines the confidence with which you have been able to dismiss him. It is also possible to understand this black-clad woman who does not speak and demands nothing except to be taken on their journey, as the personification of death which the young man protests but which the old man accepts.There is much more to this film which reveals the old man's inner resourcefulness and watchful intelligence and which forces you to reassess the balance of sympathies between these two men. Still – no comfort is offered. The old man completes his journey with his son's assistance, which he does finally acknowledge, and he dies. When the son, seeking his missing father, discovers the mortuary at Mecca, he is taken by the custodian to view the unidentified bodies. There he finds his father. Once this identification is made, the custodian and the guard – both men – withdraw and the son is left to his devastating grief and abandonment, without support or comfort – the qualities which a mother might offer at such a time. This is an uncompromising film that does not allow us to reach comforting conclusions. You cannot find the mother in such a man and seeking that is a vain and hopeless quest. What else is there? It seems to me that this question is one pertinent to this time.

PWNYCNY This movie is great! This movie is beautiful! Finally, a movie that portrays Moslems as PEOPLE, no stereotypes here. This movie is driven by the story, by the acting and above all by its theme, that of cultural affirmation and discovery. They may seem like clichés but they are not, at least not in this movie. The vista of the Grand Mosque of Mecca is absolutely stupendous and the audience is given a glimpse of a side of the Moslem world that is rarely of ever shown in the West. Here the people are caring, supportive, devout, tolerant and devoted to each other. What a welcomed and way overdue departure from the usual negative portrayals of Arabs. Outstanding movie.

elsinefilo I don't know...Maybe it's just because it's an impressive tribute to some Muslim religious action(hajj)but I just felt the movie is so underrated. I just can't believe that the movie has just been voted by only 223 people so far given that the movie was produced in 2004 and it has won many awards since then.About the movie...it's one of those well-acted sweet movies.Reda,a French teenager due to sit for Baccalauréat, is asked by his devout elderly father to take him to Mecca.Strange as it may seem(if one doesn't know much about Islam)the father wants his son to drive them from their home in France to Saudia Arabia on a once-in-a-lifetime religious pilgrimage.The generation gap between the father and the son is based on simple enough terms('you may know how to read and write, but you know nothing about life,' the unnamed father to his son)but some sort of bromidic generation gap literature is avoided.Bot of them are affectionate in their frustrations.The father never speaks in French though Reda understands Arabic but can only seem to answer in French. Though they encounter many people on the road: "There's the scary old woman they pick up in the Bosnian border on the way to Belgrade, and the talkative Mustafa(Jacky Nercessian), who helps them out at the border of Turkey,the reticent and shy women wearing burqas on the way to Damascus" the focus is always on the mismatched father and son.There is not much of a conversation in the movie which makes it enjoyable to your eyes. You see magnificent views in every city they go.The director shows you even the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia even though the movie is not relatively long.Generally I don't like movies which don't have enough dialogs and which take their power from camera subtleties but this one was really great.Despite some unanswered details(like Reda's unseen French girlfriend)the movie appeals to senses.Great work of art and remember this movie is Ismaël Ferroukhi's debut.

penseur The premise for this movie is simple and so is the script: an elderly Muslim gets his teenage son to drive him in his similarly elderly station wagon from France to the haj in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, so that he can fulfill his holy Muslim obligation before he dies. The father is clearly devoutly religious, but the son is unimpressed; he accepts out of obligation to his father rather than to religion, he'd rather be with his (non-Muslim) girlfriend. The father is stubborn in a lot of things which the son doesn't understand and the petulance between them is the device that maintains the drama, although it is often rather irksome. However, like any good road movie there are oddball characters encountered along the way; for example a woman on a backroad in Croatia who upon being asked for directions to Belgrade simply gets in the backseat and points with her hand uttering one word which they assume to be a place but can't find it on the map. In Bulgaria another man they ask directions of confirms he can speak French but then provides an extensive commentary in Bulgarian. There is also occasional humor - in one country the son tires of eating egg sandwiches and wants meat - they are given a goat, but unfortunately (perhaps fortunately for the viewer) it runs away before the father can perform the Muslim slaughterman ritual. They eventually make it to Mecca - the Muslim equivalent of the Vatican but on a much grander scale. For westerners it is all bizarre but fascinating. The movie isn't sophisticated but is charming in its own way, a kind of National Geographic with soul.