Les Misérables is explosive! REVIEW!
23rd August 2020
It is difficult to make a film about civil unrest from one perspective, but even harder to follow multiple storylines and keep the plot tight, but in his feature film debut, Ladj Ly brings his experience from documentary filmmaking to tell a story about tensions within a community and the disparities between the police and different ethnic backgrounds fighting for survival in the jungle created for them just outside one of the most famous cities in the world.Most stories are driven by conflict that usually has a face, but ‘Les Miserables’ lacks a classic villain, neither does it possess a stereotypical protagonist. Instead, we follow the story from a few perspectives, tightly linked by a petty crime committed by children that leads to a feud between two rivals – crime that has to be solved by those mostly hated within the community: an anti-crime unit.
After a lion cub is stolen from the circus – owned and operated by Muslim gypsies – by a black boy from the projects, Issa, the leader of his neighbourhood – known as ‘The Mayor’ – squares of with the Gypsy King, Zorro. This case becomes the first one that is newly recruited to the ACU Stephane, who joins the abusive white sergeant Chris and his black partner Gwada, on his very own training day from hell. It is easy to draw parallels between Ang Lee’s ‘Crash’ and Antoine Fuqua’s ‘Training Day’ as inspirations for Ly’s film, with the director letting us see the rottening, drug and prostitution-ridden neighbourhood falling apart with the cops not only acting superior to the citizens, but also taking advantage of their position of power and often stepping out of bounds. The violence, which further inflames the conflicts within the community, as well as eventual riots and ‘fight against the power’ it sparks is almost prophetical given that the movie came out a year before the current political climate in the United States (as well as, later on, all over the world) reached a boiling point and ended in the push-back from residents being sick and tired of the pattern of disrespect and racism directed at them.
It is hard to find truly likeable characters from Les Miserables’ roster of people, but that is simply because they are all so human. The film mimics real life to a point where it is quite easy to guess the trash on the blocks and huge chunks of broken cement all over – or the pit that the children are playing in – are all there if you head to Montefermeil and look for it. The unapologetic cinematography, the raw storytelling, the anger and frustration – it all seems so real that in spite of forgetting the classical narratives of cops and robbers, the shining white nights, the good and the bad…
The film captivates and grips and every inch of what appears on screen forces you to reflect on our unfair society. Yes, the events within the film are set and based on the French climate, but it is no different than what we often see in the UK, the US or other places all over the world. The systemic racism that breeds generational crime is scarily relevant now and horrifyingly repetitive. Movies like this – full of flawed characters on both sides that want to do right by their own people, their own laws, their own beliefs – are eye-opening and can spark more cultural sensitivity, more togetherness and much more compassion if they get the headlines and time they deserve.
Nominated for the Academy Award as one of the selections for Best Foreign Film category, ‘Les Miserables’ still hasn’t been seen by enough people and has to be spoken of and spotlighted, because it is a humanly told account of inhumane ways in which humans still live to this day. Do not miss it – it is coming to the cinemas today, on Sep the 4th, and although we can’t tell anyone to go and make that trip for a lot of reasons, we can only ask that you watch the film. If not today, then tomorrow or in a month or when it hits the VOD/Blu-Ray/DVD shelf. Please, watch it if you can and spread the word, because not only does it feature a diverse cast – it tells tales from a community that normally wouldn’t have theirs told… but it also promotes foreign language films which often aren’t treated with enough appreciation simply because of an inch of subtitles they come with. Seriously, just get over it and see more of those, because it opens up a whole new side of the cinema for you.
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https://flipyourwig.net/2020/08/23/robert-pattinson-as-the-batman/
