Respect? People around here just fear you

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's Top 50 Movies of 2020...

#24 : Les Misérables

In this award-winning French drama that alludes to the celebrated Victor Hugo novel, tough, cynical police try to keep the peace on tinderbox streets in the Paris suburbs.

A film I'd heard of, heard good things about and was planning on watching sometime before I died - so I was pleased to see it on the list to speed up the viewing process.  Tough police/street dramas tends to be something that French directors do quite well, so I had high hopes for it.

And it starts with an impressive piece of film-making, following various characters watching an unknown football match, but it must have been a big one what with the crowds thronging on the Champs Elysée (it was the 2018 World Cup Final, Wikipedia tells me).  It presents a view of a happy, multi-cultural France - but you know what, I'm not sure that feeling is going to last all that long.

And then we're following a new recruit to a police team, in what promises to be a somewhat challenging role.  I recognised the actor from somewhere but it took me some time to work it was from Seule Les Bêtes (the only other French film on the list so far) but he's playing a completely different role here, so that's my excuse for not recognising him.  Actors, eh - not wanting to be typecast.  Just rude.  Anyways, back to the film, it doesn't take someone who's seen too many of these kinda things to know that what we've got here is a finely poised tinderbox and someone, somewhere is going to set it alight - it's just a case of who and when with several potential options being presented to us.

And 52 minutes in, there we are.  It's quite well done with a number of threads coming together, but you can tell that, from this point on, things are not going to go well for anyone involved.  And the tension bubbles along nicely - although with 30 minutes to go, it looks like everyone might get away with it and the status quo may be restored.  But there's still 30 minutes to go and they're not going to spent that time drinking coffee..

...and they don't, but I'd also say it doesn't end the way I was expecting it to, which is to the film's credit.  I'm not going to comment any further than that, other than to say I recommend you watch it to find out what happens.

The characters are reasonably believable - they feel somewhat over-the-top at times, but I suspect such an environment in real life probably churns out far worse.  The acting is fine without being particularly noteworthy - the large cast work well together though.  But the story is top notch and the way the tension ratchets up throughout the film is really well done - with the locations around the various less salubrious areas of Paris also playing their part well.  The camera work is pretty good too - either making you feel you're in the middle of the action or far removed through the often very effective use of drones.  

All in all, it's an impressive directorial debut for Ladj Ly (and don't ask me how to pronounce that) and worthy of the Jury Prize at Cannes that it won.  Wikipedia also tells me that Emmanuel Macron was upset by the accuracy of the film - the area of Paris featured (Montfermeil - which was where Victor Hugo wrote his version, but that's about as much as the film is connected to the book from my limited knowledge) doesn't come out of the film well.

All in all, it's a fine film with a good story which is filmed well and therefore well worth a watch - as with the other French film on the list, it's a wholehearted recommendation from me (and there haven't been all that many of them so far really, have there?). 

At time of writing, the film is available to watch on Netflix so if you have that then there are far worse things on there that you can spend your time watching, so check this out. 

#25 - An extremely peculiar film
#23 - Interesting but disappointing