FILM REVIEW: 24 DAYS

Ruth (Zabou Breitman) in 24 Days.

Poor Jew

By Ed Rampell

Director Alexandre Arcady’s taut, suspenseful new film, 24 Days, is like the similarly monikered now-defunct Fox TV series, 24, in that it deals with torture within a set period of time.

However, 24 Days is based on a real life tragedy: The January 2006 abduction in Paris of French Jew Ilan Halimi (portrayed by Syrus Shahidi), a cell phone salesman of Morrocan ancestry. Arcady shares the screenwriting credits with Antoine Lacomblez and Emilie Freche, who co-wrote with Ruth Halimi (played by Zabou Breitman in the movie) a book called 24 Days, The Truth on Ilan Halimi’s Death.

Using a very realistic style, Arcady’s probing camera takes us inside the kidnapping, from Sub-Saharan Africa to France. In addition to being a policier, 24 Days is also an intense family drama. The Halimis seem like a very close knit family, although Ruth (Zabou Breitman) and Didier Halimi (Pascal Elbe) are actually divorced, which adds to the already considerable amount of tension. This leads towards the acting being occasionally overwrought in a few scenes: How many crying babies and screaming sisters, mother, etc., can a viewer stand?

The film is gripping with a political subtext and reminiscent of Costa-Gavras. 24 Days implies that the bungling police were extremely incompetent in carrying out their investigation and attempts to rescue Halimi. Most importantly, the movie explores the big question as to whether Ilan's kidnapping and abuse while being held prisoner was an act of anti-Semitism? The authorities try long and hard to deny this -- but others thought differently, including Ruth.

Arcady has a North-African background similar to Ilan's -- the director was born in Algeria and is also Jewish. He moved from Algiers to France when he was 15 and many of his movies have focused on Jewish issues and subjects, hence his interest in l’affaire Halimi. However, if 24 Days is indeed asserting that Ilan's hijacking was because of anti-Semitism, Arcady’s dramatization does not make a very convincing, strong case.

In terms of motive, there is only a very quick specific Islamicist reference and the inept kidnappers appear to be acting more on the basis of greed than on hatred per se for Jews. Yes, they targeted Ilan because he was Jewish, but not out of contempt for the Chosen People, but due to their foolish belief that all Jews are rich. So while Ilan's abductors did indeed act under the impression of a false stereotype of Jews, they did not seem to be motivated by a deep seated hatred per se of Jews, unlike inquisitors, Nazis, Islamicist extremists and other fanatics since Biblical days. The movie does not suggest that overzealous Zionist militaristic policies vis-à-vis the  Palestinians and the like provoked the body snatchers. They just wanted to make a fast, easy buck but stupidly chose a wrong target because they ignorantly believed an incorrect, idiotic caricature of Jews.

Of course, France has a history of persecution of the Jews, notably the notorious Dreyfus affair and the roundup of Jews and collaboration with the Nazis during the German occupation and the Holocaust.  As said, the Ilan events played out in 2006 and they indicate the ongoing precarious position of French Jews -- and, perhaps, of members of this long despised minority group everywhere. The resulting roundup of alleged abductors -- mostly or all non-white, in French ghettoes -- can also be seen in a different context in 2015.