SUNDAY, JANUARY 31, 2016
"Je suis Charlie" film (at TIFF) interviews those
who lived through the Hebdo attacks, and some shocking things are said
'Je suis Charlie' ('I Am Charlie', also titled L'humour a mort' or 'Humor at Death'), directed by Daniel
and Emannuel LeConte, interviews
many people who survived the attack on the offices of the satirical newspaper
of Charlie Hebdo in Paris by Said and Cherif Kouachi on January 7, 2015.
The attack killed Charlie and ten others,
and wounded eleven more. The
attack was part of a series of L'Ile de France' attacks in January,
including the Porte de Vincennes supermarket in Paris Jan. 9, also covered in
the film. This is not the same incident as "11/13" (the Bataclan and
other attacks in Paris on Nov. 13), but it foreshadows the subsequent larger
incident.
The historical background, of course, deals with the
controversy over depictions of the Prophet Muhammad, such as the
Jyllands-Posten Cartoon Controversy, and the assassination of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh in 2004 over
the short film 'Submission', as well as a previous fatwa against author Salman
Rushdie. Some say that the Koran does
not specifically prohibit such depictions, even if more fundamental groups in
Islam take it that way.
The interviews talk about the legal background in France
regarding the idea of laicite and the 2007 lawsuit
against Hebdo for supposed 'hate speech' against some of Muslim faith (Guardian
article).
The speakers get into various philosophical questions. If there is such a crime as blasphemy, why
isn't the Prophet above the insults of infidels? (as Christ would
be). One woman was apparently criticized
for not behaving sacrificially during the attack, when she might have saved
someone.
The film shows the public demonstrations supporting Charlie,
as the newspaper resumes printing millions of copies. But then a darker element to the discourse
starts, that the cartoonists and speakers had somehow brought this upon
themselves.
How could this be? It
is a shocking idea in a society that recognizes the rule of law and respects
free speech. Yet, a certain amount of
inequality is 'essential', so people tend to make their religious, familial or other cultural associations part of their
identities. They tend to equate attacks
on certain pillars of these religious identities as attacks on them from people
who are 'richer' or more 'powerful' otherwise, and therefore tolerating these
insults becomes a source of personal shame.
So religious rules on speech and other behavior can be placed inside the
'inequality' debate.
The film is available on Netlfix
(and from Amazon or YouTube from $3.99).
I'm surprised it wasn't in the Golden Globes and Oscar lists, and hasn't appeared in theaters. I had to turn the
subtitling on, which I've never had to do on Netflix before.
The film should be viewed in conjunction with the book
"The Tyranny of Silence" by Flemming Rose l
Wikipedia attribution of photo by Thierry Caro and Jeremie Hartmann of street scene after attacks, under
Creative Commons Share-Alike 4.0 International License.
Posted by Bill Boushka at 12:53 PM
Labels: criminal justice problems, domestic terror, foreign
language, indie documentary, journalists in peril, Toronto
No comments: