Les Miserables, peril in gritty modern-day Paris
The viewer enters an alien world of urban decay, violence and gang warfare in this powerful piece of realist European cinema.
Les Miserables (MA15+)
Limited release from Thursday
★★★★½
If you go to see Les Miserables, and if you enjoy a powerful example of realist European cinema you certainly should, don’t expect Victor Hugo’s story, either handled straight or in musical form. This exceptional new film unfolds in the Paris of today, although it takes place in Montfermeil, which is an outer suburb of Paris now but in Hugo’s time was a small town where some episodes of his monumental novel took place.
The new film, directed by Ladj Ly, also features a quote from that novel: “Remember, my friend. There are no such things as bad plants or bad men; there are only bad cultivators.”
Ly’s film takes its structural cue from films like Training Day or the TV series, The Wire.
The viewer enters an alien world of urban decay, violence and gang warfare via the character of a newcomer, a police officer, Stephane Ruiz (a superb Damien Bonnard), who comes from faraway Cherbourg and has recently arrived in Paris in order to be closer to his son, who is living with Ruiz’s ex-wife. Ruiz has secured an attachment to the SCU — the Anti-Crime Squad.
On his first day, after a little lecture from the precinct’s female police chief (Jeanne Balibar), he joins his new partners, Chris (Alexis Manenti who, with the director, wrote the film’s screenplay) and Gwanda (Djebril Zonga).
Chris is a bully and a racist — he wastes no time in calling the dark-skinned Ruiz “Greaser”. Ruiz can only watch horrified as Chris terrorises a 15-year-old girl waiting at a bus stop, threatening to “feel” her. That sort of sexual harassment is the least of Chris’ shortcomings, but to his credit he knows his turf. This part of outer Paris, scattered with graffiti-covered high-rise apartment buildings with broken-down elevators and garbage-strewn corridors, is home to a number of opposing gangs, and Chris is wise to them all.
The unofficial Mayor (Steve Tientcheu) keeps a kind of order but he’s not in complete control. Snapping at his heels are members of the Muslim Brotherhood, led by Salah (Almamy Kanoute), who owns a restaurant, and the vicious “Gypsies”, led by Zorro (Raymond Lopez), tough guys who, rather mysteriously, operate a circus.
The day’s dramas begin when a cheeky and disobedient kid called Issa (Issa Perica), for no particular reason, steals a lion cub from the Gypsies’ circus. Zorro threatens serious violence unless the animal is speedily returned, and it’s not long before the SCU team tracks down Issa playing football. The boy flees, hotly pursued by the three policemen, and filmed — from a drone — by another kid, Buzz (Al-Hassan Ly). A violent incident occurs and, when Chris realises that a drone had filmed everything, he sets out to find Buzz.
That’s really only the start of a film that builds up an enormous level of suspense. Children, some of them very young, prove to be the greatest threat, not only to the police but also to the fragile peace that usually allows life to go on as normal.
Though the camerawork is handheld, the photography is skilled and not needlessly intrusive. The climax, which takes place in one of the high-rise apartment buildings, is chilling.
Les Miserables boasts a cast of mostly unknown actors all of whom are excellent.
Ly makes it clear that the police are really in an impossible situation and suggests that allowing local community leaders to deal with minor crimes is the best option.
All this unrest, poverty and violence is in stark contrast to the film’s stunning opening sequence: real-life footage of crowds of people from all over Paris, including some from the streets of Montfermeil, gathering in the city’s famous centre to celebrate France’s win in the 2018 World Cup; a sporting triumph that brought together Frenchmen and women of all racial backgrounds in a huge, but, as it turns out, short-lived, celebration.
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Lowdown Dirty Criminals (MA15+)
Limited release
★★★½
I’m not sure if it’s the Kiwi accents, or the relaxed style of acting, but Lowdown Dirty Criminals, a New Zealand comedy-thriller that owes a huge debt to Quentin Tarantino and (especially) Guy Ritchie, is a surprisingly amusing piece of entertainment. Sure, it’s a daft film in many ways, but it’s knowingly, endearingly daft. The opening credits contain a dedication “For Dad”, and the director’s usual possessive title (A film by Paul Murphy) is followed by “and a heap of others”.
The opening sequence, which is set in a bar, depicts a Mexican standoff. As the film’s narrator, Freddy, explains it: “This is one of those days when everything turns to shit.” Freddie is played by James Rolleston, the very engaging Maori actor many will remember in the title role of Boy (2010), an early film by Taika Waititi.
He’s grown up since then, but he’s still a charmer.
Freddy is pointing two hand guns at four of the other people in the room, all of them quickly identified by on-screen titles.
There are The Upholsterer (Rebecca Gibney), whose nickname carries sinister implications, Mr Spiggs (Scott Wills), who owns the bar, and two of The Upholsterer’s strongarm men, Semo (Robbie Magasiva), a Samoan, and Roy (Cohen Holloway). The sixth man is Marvin (Samuel Austin), Freddy’s bestie. So how did this situation arise?
Flashback to Last Night, and then further back to The Day Before Last Night to where the story really starts. Freddy and Marvin were working, unsuccessfully, as pizza deliverers when they decided to audition for a job with crime boss Mr Spiggs.
Their first attempt at robbery leads to severe damage to both their boss’s car and his birthday cake, so he’s not happy. As punishment the lads are ordered to do away with Donnie Kong (Min Kim) who is having it off with Mr Spiggs’ wife.
Needless to say this assignment doesn’t work out well either and the hapless criminals soon find themselves threatened by The Upholsterer who has lost some mysterious (and never explained) merchandise and will stop at nothing to get it back.
What follows is a generally amusing series of mishaps in which the unfortunate Freddy and Marvin find themselves sinking deeper and deeper into the mire.
The mayhem, which verges into the gross-out in one cheerfully ludicrous sequence involving an obese man who has recently expired, is directed at a cracking pace and though it rarely makes sense it doesn’t really matter.
Among the marginal participants in the mayhem is the unlikely character of Barbara (Olivia Morphew), a teenager who seems to be taking time off from school to manage a peculiarly seedy motel — and who isn’t afraid to take up arms to defend herself.
All of these characters, with the possible exception of The Upholsterer, are not only lowdown and dirty, they’re positively dumb.
Part of the film’s pleasure is to be found in the amusingly gormless conversations (thanks to screenwriter David Brechin-Smith) in which they engage. Lowdown Dirty Criminals is rude and crude — and quite disarming.
