My Review- Les Misérables 2019 (Not the Musical)
My Rating 7/10
This very thought provoking French movie was nominated as Best International Feature Film at last year's Academy Award Ceremony.
The amazing South Korean film Parasite of course won that category as well as Best Picture for 2020 becoming the first Foreign Language movie to win both awards.
I don't know the excellent Actors or the Director of this contemporary film set in the working-class suburb of Montfermeil, where Victor Hugo wrote his famous novel Les Misérables.
I would have scored it higher if I had found the conclusion more satisfying but sometimes in Foreign language movies a little is lost in translation and I found the conclusion a little abrupt.
We are propelled into the future from the community unrest poverty and corruption in authority from those troubled times of early 19th Century Paris that Victor Hugo wrote about in 1862 to the 2nd decade of the 21st Century that mirror exactly the equally troubled times in Paris and the world in general today .
The community of Montfermeil where the film takes place was the location of real life police violence which took place in the city on 14 October 2008 in the aftermath of the 2018 FIFA World Cup and was observed and filmed by Ladj Ly who co wrote and directed this story that follows several characters within the commune, as a theft from a teenager spirals into the threat of a large crisis.
The film depicts abuses against poor citizens, especially teenagers of sub-Saharan African or Maghrebi ethnicities, and the consequences of a few bad apples who are responsible or supposed to be responsible to maintain law and order.
Assigned to work alongside unethical police veterans Chris (Alexis Manenti) and Gwada (Djebril Zonga) in Paris' Anti-Crime Brigade, Brigadier Stéphane Ruiz (Damien Bonnard) - a recent transfer to the working-class suburb of Montfermeil, where Victor Hugo wrote his famous novel Les Misérables - struggles to establish a working relationship with influential community leaders while attempting to maintain some semblance of peace between his disreputable team and the citizens of the local housing projects. When what should be a simple arrest goes tragically awry, the three officers must individually reconcile with the aftermath of their actions while angling to keep the neighbourhood from retaliating with mob violence. Beginning as a Cesar-winning short film, the film was inspired by the 2005 riots in Paris. It was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Jury Prize (in a tie with BACURAU) and was selected as France's entry for Best International Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards.
Les Misérables 2019 deserves all the International praise and awards it has received .
The very exciting and disturbing mob siege scenes between the community and the Police at the end of the film are staged and shot so convincingly that it looks as though it's taken from actual news reel footage.
I just would have preferred not to be left wondering what happened to the main characters ?
Review of Les Misérables
