Mark Reviews Movies: LES MISÉRABLES (2019)

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Review by Mark Dujsik | January 9, 2020

Co-writer/director Ladj Ly's Les Misérables twice references the Victor Hugo novel of the same name. The first time is to point out that Hugo wrote the 1862 book, about a petty thief of bread for his starving family being hunted by an overly determined police inspector (amongst other things), while in Montfermeil, the suburban commune near Paris that is the setting of Ly's feature debut. The second reference comes at the end, with a pointed quote from the novel: "There are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad cultivators."

That quote isn't the thesis of Ly's film, but it does seem to serve as the guiding principle here. The story, set in the present day, follows a trio of police officers, as well as assorted citizens of Montfermeil, over the course of 24 hours or so. The national soccer team of France has won a major game, and in film's the opening scenes, we watch as some kids from Montfermeil take a train to Paris to watch that victory unfold. The bars and streets of the city are filled with people—men and women and children of various ethnic and racial backgrounds—all of them watching the game with laser focus and then bursting with elation. A mass of celebration fills the streets. The national flag is waved by many, and everyone sings "La Marseillaise" as the Arc de Triomphe towers in the background.

For the rest of the film, no one is as happy or unified as this collection of strangers is at the beginning. To clarify, there is a unification near the end of the film, but to call it a happy gathering would be a most terrible lie. The unification is one of rage and revenge, because, as one character puts it to the rookie cop on this beat, there are times that people will only listen to anger.

As presented in the film, there's a lot of anger in Montfermeil. Based on the two veterans of the force that we follow, the cops of the local Street Crimes Unit seem to look at the local population with a cynicism that often turns to nihilism. The inherent belief, it seems, is that crime here will be a constant. Drugs used to be the problem, but now, it's prostitution.

Theirs is not just a belief about this specific place, either. A man whom one of the officers arrested comes up to the police car. He was recently released from prison, and now, he's looking for a job. Chris (Alexis Manenti, also one of the screenwriters), the cop who arrested this man year ago, smiles and offers him good luck. Once the man is gone, the cop bets his fellow officers in the car that the ex-convict will be arrested again in about six months. In Chris' eyes, it seems, there are no good people—only those waiting to become criminals and to be caught.

The other two cops on this patrol are Gwada (Djibril Zonga), a first- or second-generation immigrant who was raised and still lives in this neighborhood, and Ruiz (Damien Bonnard), the new guy who recently moved to Paris to be closer to his young son after his divorce. Ruiz seems like a decent man. He certainly tries to intervene when his fellow officers—almost always Chris—get out of line. In Gwada, we can sense a cop who was once like Ruiz, especially when he talks to the mother of a troublemaking kid, who might have gotten himself into more trouble than the boy realizes. Now, though, Gwada just goes along, because that's what cops do for one another.

Ly, Giordano Gederlini, and Manenti's screenplay follows the cops, but it also presents this neighborhood in its social, cultural, and political complexity. Some of the major figures include the Mayor (Steve Tientcheu), who oversees the local businesses with a group of henchmen that makes it look suspiciously like a racket, and Zorro (Raymond Lopez), leader of a group of "gypsies" who run a nearby circus. Some drug dealers remain, and Salah (Almamy Kanoute), an ex-convict who became a devout Muslim and now runs a restaurant, knows enough about this place to offer advice and to keep to his little corner of the neighborhood.

There is a story here, involving the search for a lion cub stolen from the circus. Ly, though, is far more interested in portraying how these various groups, connected by poor living and economic conditions, find themselves at an unspoken impasse of corruption (Every group stays out of every other one's way, and the cops seem to have an in with all of them) that increasingly becomes more difficult to hold. Ly and cinematographer Julien Poupard use handheld cameras and drones (One of those devices becomes a key to the plot later) to give the film a documentary-like authenticity.

All the while, Ly evades judgment, if only because everything in the neighborhood seems to be in some kind of order. The real point, though, becomes clearer as the filmmakers follow Issa (Issa Perica), the boy who stole the lion cub, and some other kids of various ages in the neighborhood. There's a key moment—one of, as the cop who performs the act later calls it, being overcome with anger—that changes the tone and perspective of this insulted community. The cops are to blame, for sure, but so, too, are these other groups—overlooking an inexcusable act of violence to further their own interests.

Ultimately, this story is about the children—those who come to see the so-called order of this place as intolerable. From one point of view, the final act of Les Misérables descends into chaos. From another, it ascends into a revolution of understandable rage.

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