5 films that tell the esprit révolutionnaire

France is in revolt, but the country has always been moved by a feeling of popular insurrection; let’s see how the cinema spoke about it!

If you have turned on the news in recent weeks, or better yet, if like yours truly you are in Paris, you will have noticed the riots that are shaking the France. Transport disruptions, occupied universities, street protests with hundreds of thousands of people, dumpsters set on fire. The reason? The approval of the pension reform, which provides that the minimum retirement age will be raised from 62 to 64 (although the real calculation is then made on a quarterly basis).

The situation is extremely complex, also made so by the fact that Macron has decided to apply article 49.3 of the Constitution to approve his reform in the lower house of parliament, without going through the National Assembly. The discontent of the French population is palpable, you can see it from the atmosphere that reigns from the capital, hit by continued protests and demonstrations, sometimes violent.

But it is also true that the strike is part of the French DNA, and that it has very distant roots: we can find its origins already in the French Revolution, in the protests of May 1968, up to theexploit of violence with the crisis of Yellow vests in 2018-2019. We have tried to associate five films with this revolutionary spirit which, in different ways, tell it.

Zero in Conduct: Children’s Revolt in France

Our review could only begin with a cult of French cinema: let’s talk about Zero in conduct of the surrealist Jean Vigo, a medium-length film of just over 40 minutes released in 1933, just a year before his death at the age of 29. While not exactly focused on social uprisings, the film still exudes the sense of protest that is inherent in the French soul, from an early age.

With partially autobiographical content, Zero in conduct it is in fact about a group of boarding school students who rebel against the strict rules imposed on them by their teachers, also thanks to the help of the overseer Huguet, creating chaos at the school party. The struggle in this case is between the world of adults which is the mouthpiece of the bourgeois society which holds power, against the world of children which is instead driven by freedom andinsubordination.

Vigo places everything in a dreamlike atmosphere, with technical virtuosity such as slow motion and transformations characteristic of his (short) filmography, as well as avant-garde for the 1930s in which it takes place. The cursed director he tells everything by siding on the side of the children: he is telling us that in order to be able to give vent to one’s creativity, disobedience is necessary. And think that at the time the film was even censored, because considered anti-French. Today, however, the French critics would certainly not be of the same opinion, on the contrary: it can be considered a film that manifests their spirit of revolt.

Paris, all in one night

The Italian translation does not do justice to the original title of the film directed by Catherine Corsini, The fracture. A metaphorical and explanatory title of the profound meaning of this film, released in 2021 and presented at the Cannes Film Festival, which awarded it with the Queer Palme.

The fracture in fact it recounts the meeting between Raf, an intellectual who is separating from his partner Julie, and Yann, a truck driver who was injured by the police while participating in a yellow vest protest, and a nurse who, as Almodovar would have told us, is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. It all happens in one stormed emergency room by the demonstrators and results in a clash between the distant universes of the protagonists, fighting each other, each other and with a Paris in revolt.

In a film that could be a theater piece due to its rich dialogue and unique hospital setting, the rapid and sometimes claustrophobic shots give us the impression of being on war ground. And this is basically the attempt of the film: to represent a class clash between single individuals, played by a splendid woman Valeria Bruni Tedeschiby Pio Marmaï, Marina Foïs and Aissatou Diallo Sagna, against the backdrop of a limping Paris which is the real fracture of the film.

Athena: the drama of the banlieue in France

The feature film Athena by Romain Gavras, written together with Ladj Ly (the same director of The Miserables), enters forcefully into the theme of police violencerecounting the uncomfortable situation in which some working-class neighborhoods find themselves banlieue Parisian.

The action revolves around the death of the young Idir, which occurred at the hands, at least presumed, of the police, in the Athena neighborhood. To take responsibility for his murder, his brother Karim incites a brutal riot in the neighborhood, against the will of his second son Abdel and his first son Moktar. Karim’s anger leads to the most fiery riots, while the city of Athena becomes the scene of one family and collective tragedy. Presented at the 79th Venice Film Festival and distributed on Netflix, Gavras’ film will not leave you indifferent: you will love it or hate it.

For the explosiveness of the story, for the nervous filming in very long sequence shots, for the harsh reality it presented; the film has in fact received a mixed reception. Criticized for excessive violence, but appreciated for having given a contemporary look at a model of Greek family tragedy, making Athena’s revolt a representative symbol of all of France, marked for years by internal guerrilla warfare and always on the verge of exploding. Athena it is sort of Contemporary Iliadwhich from an urban western becomes a barricade film.

Les Miserables: Two adaptations of Hugo’s novel

Let’s take a further step back in time, to the turbulent years ranging from the post-Napoleonic Restoration to the anti-monarchist revolt of 1832. The French writer told us about them beautifully Victor Hugo in his novel de The Miserables, from which several adaptations, both theatrical and cinematographic, have been made.

Les Miserables, the Hollywood epic of 2012

Among them, one of the most famous is the 2012 musical film of the same name directed by Tom Hooper. This Hollywood epic is inspired by the 1980 French musical set to music by Claude-Michel Schoenberg, who also signed the music for the film. Among the many interpreters of its stellar cast, Hugh Jackman shines in the role of Jean Valjean, Russell Crowe in that of the gendarme Javert and a very good Anne Hathaway in the role of Fantine, for which she received the Oscar for best supporting actress.

The film is predominantly sung and historical accuracy is not the director’s main interest, who rather prefers the dramatic intensity of the music, and of the performers, which he records in close-ups. Against the backdrop of the imposing stage sets of 19th-century Paris, Les Miserables is a blockbusters Hollywood who knows how to excite.

Les miserables, but in contemporary France

A contemporary re-adaptation of The Miserables was released in 2019, in an eponymous film directed by Ladj Ly, of which we leave you our review here. The French director’s first feature film takes up the patriotic spirit of the original, but recontextualizes it to the present day. Ladj Ly’s film is in fact inspired by an incident he filmed on 24 October 2008, when a black boy was injured by policemen in the suburb of Montefermeil.

Winner of Jury Prize at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, The Miserables addresses the issue of police violence, the racism still present in a nation that prides itself on its multiculturalism, and the hard life in the banlieue.

The Dreamers – The dreamers

This 2003 film by Bernardo Bertolucci is perhaps the most representative film of the French spirit of revolt. Set in May 1968, it tells the story of Matthew, an American student who arrived in Paris, and the twins Isabelle and Theo, linked by a morbid and sometimes incestuous relationship. A relationship develops between the three boys menage a trois that overwhelms and alienates them, while the riots break out outside their apartment French May.

All of this is placed in a fully cinematic context: Bertolucci is telling us how much cinema makes history, showing us the Cinémathèque française in effervescence, protesting against the ouster of its founder Henri Langois. Although Bertolucci said he didn’t want to represent a historically accurate ’68 but an almost imaginary ’68, his portrait of the student uprisings and the violent response of the Parisian gendarmerie seems extremely realistic to us. “It is not a film about the barricades in Paris in 1968, but about the youthful idealism that inspired them“, She said.

While focusing on the erotic drift of the relationship between the protagonists, The Dreamers becomes a metaphor for the new French Revolution, staging it both from a political point of view and above all from a cultural one, in a whirlwind of sexual freedom and excesses. Young Theo and Isabelle cannot escape the call of their own city’s revolt; the fight is in their blood, and must be carried on with their compatriots, while the American Matthew remains a stranger.

There are other films about the protests in France what would you add to this list? We have deliberately neglected some titles; we look forward to your comments! Always on CiakClub.

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