LES MISÉRABLES | FILM REVIEW
Dir: Ladj Ly (15, 104 mins)
No, not that one. There’s no music and revolutionary warbling involved here, just the setting where Victor Hugo staged part of his novel Les Misérables: the violent suburb of Les Bosquets in Montfermeil, eastern Paris, and a simmering revolution in the making in this gripping, timely drama. Opening with a vibrant celebration of France’s World Cup win on the streets of a united, joyful Paris, the action shifts to Les Bosquets and follows Damien Bonnard’s Stephane’s first day as a member of the street crime unit alongside Djibril Zonga’s Gwada and the streetwise Chris, the Pink Pig, who has a cynical, brash persona on the streets, not above frisking attractive girls for his own ends.
An uneasy relationship exists between the police and the community, held in check by the Mayor (Steve Tientchu), a manager of the market stalls, and reformed ex-jihadi Salah (Almamy Kanoute), who now runs a kebab shop. They keep the peace with the various factions, aiding or remaining neutral as the police search for wrongdoers. The theft of a lion cub from a travelling circus run by travellers incites the ire and a heated confrontation, as they believe a local boy has stolen their ‘Johnny’. Racially-charged language conflates the situation and the police find themselves searching for the cub, leading to the shooting of a young boy with a flash ball gun. This is recorded by another local youth via a passing drone; a search for the drone and its memory card ensues as tensions escalate.
Documentary in feel initially, this captures brilliantly the suppressed tensions existing in such a charged melting pot. The three policemen are full of contradictions; part of the fabric of the area for 10 years, they know their people but also instill fear and disgust. As the atmosphere worsens, a showdown seems inevitable as the fragile peace fragments. Director Ly, whose 2005 short film chronicling another Paris riot forms the inspiration for this longer version, creates an immersive world peopled with believable characters and offers no easy solutions to the problems endemic in such charged environments. A police procedural and a social critique well told, with a telling final quote from Hugo’s book – “Remember this my friends, there are no bad plants or bad men; there are only bad cultivators.”
words KEIRON SELF
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