OT: I can't get into the Arab immigrant films.

I watched this movie the same day as Denis Villaneuve's Incendies and Monsieur Lazar. I watched La Haine two weeks previous, and I've seen others before. I see a common theme in that people create the hell that they live in, even if the world may be rough for them from the get go. Monsieur Lazar did not have a protagonist making life difficult for himself, but he came from a country where fighting was rife.

I love Jacques Audiard. I think he may just be the best director working in the world today, or at least among the best. This is a good movie, but it's not one of my favorites of his portfolio. I didn't like any of the characters, and I couldn't relate to any of them either.

It is impossible to watch these films today and not to associate them with the recent Paris Attacks, the refugee drama in Cologne, and ISIL recruitment across Europe. That's why I have some problems with them.

These movies seem like a form of political correctness to me. French society is portrayed as a cold and exploitative force. I don't doubt that's North African immigrants are exploited and excluded, and wrongly so in many situations. However, the other reason for Moslem male alienation in Europe is that they just don't fit in at all. Their mindset belongs to another place and time. They don't understand the culture they live amongst or, at worst, they despise it. Many of these people aren't especially smart or talented. Many of these people don't read well or aren't good with math. There aren't going to be many opportunities for people like that in an industrialized society.

South Africa and the United States have always had big problems when large numbers of young men migrate internally from the countryside to the cities. It's the same with middle easterners coming onto Europe. They come in and they see things they want but can't have because they never learned the necessary skills to attain them. They grew up around goats, cattle, and fields of tobacco, millet, or corn. They come into the city and get stars in their eyes because there is something much bigger that they don't understand at all. They don't know the subtleties of getting along in the city, and they often get claustrophobic around the buildings and agoraphobic around the large crowds because it is a new stimulus to them. They stick with other people much like themselves, and they stay alienated together.

Like the Southern Blacks who poured into northern American cities after World War 2 third world people, at least those who can't make a living in an industrialized area because they can't read or write very well, are often attracted to crime. The film American Gangster did an excellent job of showing this, though it failed to mention that Frank Lucas was illiterate (look it up). There's no reason to believe that a fictional character like Foxy Brown or Superfly could get into college or trade school in the real world either. That's why Tony Montana T-shirts and posters are so popular with lower class people in America. He is a mythical hero because he attained status with no special skills and a criminal record. A person like that, outside of film, generates no sympathy from those who are enfranchised by society and can make a living by working. Arab immigrants to Europe fall into this trap too, though the crime rate there is somewhat lower than in America.

Moslem sexual mores, which includes chaperoning young female relatives, bring tons of friction with and derision of that group of people from the larger European population. They exclude themselves from the host culture in this way.

First world expats often exclude themselves from society in third world countries as well, and the local population grows to resent them too. This is exactly what happens with Arabs and Africans in France and Germany. I know because I have seen it first hand after spending time in the Frankfurt metro area. You can't get along with your neighbors if you don't try.

There is relatively little in these films to indicate that these Moslem immigrant groups do not understand French society. Society is just shown as cold or unfair to them. There may be some truth to that, but that's far from the whole story. Moslems in Europe have a great lack of understanding and at times a condescension towards European culture and ways of thinking. I won't say that the EU countries don't have their problems, but are Syria and Algeria really the culturally superior areas?

These films seem like political correctness to me because I see none of what I just described above in any of them. It's like the writers can't see the forest for the trees. It's as if, before sitting in front of the keyboard, they never took the time to understand the people they are writing about or the society they are living in. What I see in the Arab characters are actually French people posing as Arabs. I assume this is because, big surprise, that's who wrote the scripts.

There is a Richard Rodriguez quote (although I don't remember it exactly) that says something to the effect of, " praise of the unlettered (by writers) is the highest form of condescension". I get that feeling watching these films. That's why I can't get into them.