Dhanush (yes it’s just one name), a Tamil movie star, has to do a Bollywood, right? So midway through “The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir,” out of the blue, conman and romantic Aja (played with verve and affection by Dhanush) and co-star Erin Moriarty launch into an extravagant dance set on a disco floor. Completely out of tenor with the basic plot – Aja takes his mother’s ashes towards Paris but ends up on a circuitous illegal immigrants’ series of journeys that plunge him into love – the dance sequence actually jibes with the film’s playful spirit. A travel adventure? A rom-com? A paean to immigrants? A pilgrim’s passage? A Belgian production deftly directed by little-known Ken Scott, “Fakir” is all of those, and if that bothers you, you’ll have little truck with it. Me, I found it to offer a gentle, often funny, often touching interlude deepened by a few nuggets of insight.
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