File reading in python is basicslly the same as in c, though there is a little more verbosity to, say, just read a binary integer. Note you need the b mode in your open call. You can use fseek just like you would in c.

You will want to use either struct.unpack operating on the bytes returned by read, your you can use file readinto pointing to a ctypes structure, or an array.

Of course, the python paradigm would be to use pickle or marshall when reading stuff created in and intended to be used by python, or json for more human readable format.