Full Description
Set against the backdrop of the Pope’s August 1997 visit to Paris, when tens of thousands of Catholic Youth were mobilized, this screwball comedy rises to the level of religious allegory. Jonas (Clément Sibony) and Paco (Isaac Sharry) are best friends and professional bar-mitzvah entertainers. Paco, a volatile young man off-stage, croons in an outrageously romantic style, as if trying to seduce every woman in the audience while Jonas, more reserved, and in love with one woman, plays keyboards. After the birth of his first child, Jonas’ stable world plunges into chaos. Because their family is of mixed Sephardic and Ashkenazi heritage, he and Julie (Marie Desgranges) are unsure of which ritual to observe for their son’s circumcision. Finally, they decide to follow a North African custom and, three days after the bris, Jonas must bury the foreskin. Exhausted from a grueling bar-mitzvah performance, Jonas loses the precious bit of flesh in an attempt to bury it in a construction zone, and goes off on a wild chase through the city.
