Le fils de l'autre France 2012 – 105min.

Movie Rating

Le fils de l'autre

Movie Rating: Agathe Tissier

A Jew and an Arab discover they were exchanged at birth; they have been living each other's lives – with the enemy.

Joseph gets ready to perform his military service in Tel-Aviv, but discovers by chance during a medical check-up that he can't be the biological son of his parents. Following the trail all the way back to his birth, he finds out the stunning truth: two babies were exchanged at birth by mistake. He is someone else's son, and from the other camp at that – his biological family lives on the other side of the wall in Palestine. While Joseph prepares to undergo conversion to be considered a Jew again, Yacine, the other young man, becomes one automatically through his real mother. How will these two boys deal with their new identity? Are they sons through their hearts or their blood?

Lorraine Lévy adapted the novel La vie est un long fleuve tranquille by Etienne Chatillez, moving the exchange of babies with the families Silberg and El-Bezzaz, which adds dimensions of social identity within two conflicted peoples. In taking a serious approach to the issue, the mix-up reveals the wealth of emotions at work on both sides. Even if the story's initial position seems more suited to a comedy, the movie is plotted and performed with enough subtlety that the result is a sweet story about brotherhood. With its lack of politics, Le fils de l'autre ends up a kind of utopian bubble in the middle of this conflicted region.

07.06.2021

3

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