Film review: In charming Ténor, a Parisian rap artist goes to the Opera Garnier
Screening at Visions Ouest, this breezy French find has a surprising amount to say about the power of art to connect a divided society
As Antoine, Mohammed Belkhir has a rap flow that rivals his tenor opera singing.
Visions Ouest and the Alliance française de Vancouver present Ténor at SFU Woodward’s on October 30 at 7 pm
THE HIGHLY ENJOYABLE new French film Ténor bounces between two locales that are about a 45-minute train ride apart—but might as well be on different continents: the gilded, chandelier-lined halls of Paris’s Opera Garnier and the anonymous highrise developments that fill the city’s suburbs.
Director Claude Zidi, Jr. centres the movie on what happens when those two worlds meet, bringing just enough edgy humour to a story that might otherwise feel contrived. In it, Antoine (a likable yet already world-weary Mohammed Belkhir) is a young, French-Arab Parisian who spends his days delivering sushi and half-heartedly studying accounting, and his nights throwing down rhymes at rap battles and supporting his older brother in illegal street fights.
A chance food delivery up the grand staircases of the Garnier brings him into contact with the rarefied world of opera singing—and when he mimics one of the uppity singers who disses him, instructor Mme. Loyseau instantly recognizes a raw talent (and a chance to diversify the opera atelier program). But if Antoine wants to train with her, he’ll have to hide it from his homies, who will see his defection to the bourgeoisie as high treason (and his new teacher as “une cougar”—no subtitles needed for that one.)
Oui, bien sûr, we know exactly where this story of the underdog is headed, as Madame teaches him to breathe from his diaphragm and open his voice into arias (okay, maybe a little too quickly for an art form where tenors can take decades to develop their instrument). But the film feels surprisingly authentic—it simply gets the social hierarchy at work in the French capital, showing its street smarts every time it heads out to the banlieue, where Antoine’s crew turns profanity-laced trash-talking into its own fine art form. As for the scenes of the French rap battles, they’re as much of an adrenaline rush as the soaring opera singing. It helps that the unassuming Belkhir can—unbelievably—pull off killer rhymes as convincingly as “Nessun Dorma”.
In the end, this charming little film, well worth catching on the Visions Ouest program, has some surprisingly deep things to say about the power of art—and the absurdity of trying to divide it into “high” and “low” forms. Antoine is as blown away listening to Madame Butterfly’s "Un bel dì" on his headphones for the first time as Mme. Loyseau is discovering Tupac on the CD he gives her. (“Deux Pac?” she asks when she reads the album cover.)
And as brisk and entertaining as Zidi keeps the story, he really does seem to be saying something inspiring about the new France—and the way newcomers can connect with the centuries-old Parisian culture. All that, beautiful music, a trip to the gorgeous Garnier—and even a handful of new French swear words and putdowns to file away.
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