Tag: Thomas Kruithof

Promises (Les Promesses)

Posted on by victorfraga

QUICK SNAP: LIVE FROM VENICE

Promises are the manure politics must spread to get anything to grow. All politicians must make promises in order to get elected. And they must be unrealistic and unrealisable. We don’t elect people unless they’re going to drain the swamp or promise a better future they largely have no control over. The idea that these promises are to be believed is one of those necessary lies that we are all culpable of sustaining.

Clemence (Huppert) is the mayor of a small French town close to Paris. A housing estate is in dire need of regeneration but it is also a hive of slum landlords and failing services. A potential deal which would see millions of euros invested in the neighbourhood stalls because tenants are refusing to pay the extortionate fees being charged by the building supervisor. Somehow Clemence and her trusted chief of staff Yazid (Reda Kateb) must persuade the residents to pay the arrears and to trust them that in doing so they will finally – after many years of promises – see their lives changed and improved in a substantial way.

Unfortunately, Clemence is distracted by the possibility that her political career might improve dramatically – she is being wooed for a ministerial post – or disappear, if she makes good on her promises not to run for re-election. The slack is taken up by Yazid who has a personal stake in the issue: he once lived in the buildings and made his way up the party apparatus through his smarts.

Kruithof and his fellow screenwriter Jean-Baptiste Delafon have crafted a clever and intriguing political drama. The details are paid close attention to and the portrait of the town takes in politics from many levels. From the activist resident complaining about a burst pipe up to the masters of the universe of Elysses whose attention occasionally strobes across the ordinary lives of the people whose policies they touch. There are surprises along the way. The slum landlord far from being an evil criminal is actually a kindly vet, he has his own factotum who is pressuring the politicians in a way that looks similar to Yazid’s somewhat cynical tactics. The performances are all superb. Huppert has an effortless aloofness that is all too credibly enrapturing when expressed as charisma. She is a politician who cares, without actually caring. I’d vote for her.

But it’s actually Reda Kateb’s film. He is the backroom negotiator who finds himself discovering a cause late in the day and putting himself to work with the desperate fervor of a man in search of some kind of redemption. It is the kind of liberal heartwarming idea – politics actually working for once – that has appeared many times, from Frank Capra to The West Wing, but here it feels credible. However, there is no sign of the gillet jaunes and the current political turmoil that is gripping France and indeed Europe. Les Promesses is ultimately a sedate fairytale, proffering the idea that occasionally when the stars align and individuals have crises of conscience the state turns up to save the day. Somehow, it feels like times have gone beyond that.

Promises has just premiered at La Biennale di Venezia.

Scribe (La Mécanique de l’Ombre)

Posted on by victorfraga

Just how loyal are you to your boss? Do your professional allegiances supersede your moral convictions? Would you stay silent in your job if you came across evidence of murder and other sorts of wrongdoing? And if you turn a blind eye and pretend you have no knowledge of what’s happening, does that make you an accomplice? This is more or less sums up the dilemmas that Duval (François Cluzet) faces in his new, highly secretive job.

The 50-something-year-old was made redundant from his lifetime job following an alcoholic episode, and he knows that long-term unemployment but an inevitability at his age. That’s why he finds it impossible to refuse when a mysterious businessman called Clément (Denis Podalydès) offers him a very well-paid position within his dodgy company. Duval has little awareness of what the job comprises, but he knows that he was chosen due to sharp eye for detail, tenacity, efficiency and commitment to work.

The job consists of transcribing intercepted phone calls from very obscure sources. Duval is required to work very specific hours within a very specific location, where he’s not allowed to use his mobile phone or even to smoke. He attempts not to pay attention to the content of the calls, and instead just to transcribe words mechanically. A little bit like a monkey dancing to an organ grinder’s tune. But then a third man steps in and Duval’s allegiance to Clément is tested, and his life becomes endangered. He is now fully immersed in the underground world of criminality and the French secret services, where the line between good and bad, between justice and transgression, between law and lawlessness is extremely blurred.

This is an effective political thriller with a dark and somber pace, with just enough emotional depth to keep you hooked throughout. Violence also comes in sparse doses, and so it won leave your body aching. The only problem is that the twists eventually become too abundant, and the narrative almost goes a off-rail towards the end.

Scribe has a little Latin American flavour: it feels like an Chilean/Argentinean thriller by Pablo Larraín or Pablo Trapero in its slow pace, dark photography and ambiguous political connotations. Cluzet even looks a lot like the überstar of Argentinian thrillers Ricardo Darín. At times the film also feels like a tribute to the American conspiracy thrillers of the 1970s, when the Watergate scandal shook the US and made espionage films extremely popular. The themes of surveillance and wiretapping technology are reminiscent of movies like Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation (1974) and Don Siegel’s Telefon (1977).

Still, Scribe is not a film about the past. The very current subject of foreign meddling in French presidential elections is also a central topic. Did the first-time director Thomas Kruithof anticipate the controversy of the 2017 elections, when Putin was accused of conspirancy and sabotaging in favour of Marine Le Pen? Scribe is out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, July 21st.