May Allah Bless France! (Abd Al Malik, 2014): France
Reviewed by Furkan Altunkaynak. Viewed at AFI Fest 2014.
The movie May Allah Bless France! story based on the real life of famous France rapper Abd Al Malik. The Story written and directed by Abd Al Malik to share his life experiences. Story talks about how Hip-hop music chanced his life. The movie has won International Critics’ Award from Toronto Film Festival.
Abd Al Malik act in other movies and TV shows as himself but this movie is his first known written and directed film. Even thought, it is his first movie, it is greatly sculptured and giving the messages and goals crystal clearly. The decision making the movie black and white film by Abd Al Malik was great decision. It wouldn’t this effective if color film used. Plot takes you specific events that happened and effected Abd Al Malik’s life. Other then trying to achieve one big goal, you find yourself in situation-to-situation, and problem to another like a boat stuck in the middle of an ocean. Time goes fast in the movie and the moments that you don’t want to forget but live; just like in real-life. With the help of cinematographer Pierre Aim who has 4 nominations, gained great picture to watch on the white screen. Camera angles are perfectly used helpful tool in this film to understand and feel Abd Al Malik’s character’s state of mind. While playing real-time audio at the background, slow-motion action plays which slowly gets faster and catch ups with the real time audio. This is like a screech solo in a hip-hop music but made by video. Which, I find a brilliant work of a great artist like Pablo Picasso or Vincent van Gogh. These artists are famous by their paintings that capable of showing its owner’s point of view to the world. That gives me the idea of Abd Al Malik is not only a great music maker but also a man capable of mirror himself out and show what is happening in his head to the world we can process and understand. This is one of the main skills that needed to be great director and he has the skill. I like his work and I believe that he can show much more and teach us more life lesson in the world of moving image.
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You’re currently reading “May Allah Bless France! (Abd Al Malik, 2014): France,” an entry on Student Film Reviews
- Published:
- 11.26.14 / 8am
- Category:
- AFI Filmfest 2014, Cinema Society, Films
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