Annual French and Francophone Film Festival: “Without Distinction: Race and Ethnicity in New French Film”
Mondays, 7 PM at Images Cinema, in French with English subtitles, Admission Free

February 6

Jacques Audiard, “Un Prophète” (2008)

Malik, the 19-year-old French-Arab criminal vividly portrayed by Tahar Rahim enters prison as an uneducated naïf. But by the time he leaves jail, he will know how to read—and how to kill. Jacques Audiard’s intricate study of the bloody rules and rituals behind bars never once glorifies the shocking violence that becomes a rite of passage for Malik, who, friendless, feels he must do the savage bidding of a ferocious Corsican crime boss in exchange for protection. Instead, the director (sometimes referred to as the “French Scorsese”) examines prison as its own specific social system, its corruption, cronyism, and racism a reflection of France at large. As Malik begins to defy the Corsican overlord and make decisions of his own, he becomes drawn to another Muslim inmate who teaches him how to read and write. For as much as we cheer Malik’s small victories on his slow road to redemption, he remains a deliberately ambiguous hero— one who will always have copious blood on his hands.

February 13

Claire Denis, “35 Rhums” (2009)

Films about families and their complications all too often pierce eardrums with shrieks of dysfunction. Amid the din, Claire Denis’s sublime 35 Shots of Rum stands out all the more for its soothing quiet, conveying the easy, frequently nonverbal intimacy between a widowed father, Lionel, and his university-student daughter, Joséphine. An homage to Yasujiro Ozu’s similarly themed Late Spring (1949), 35 Shots is Denis’s warmest, most radiant work, honoring a family of two’s extreme closeness while suggesting its potential for suffocation. 35 Shots is firmly rooted in place, several scenes unfolding in an apartment building in a run-down section of Paris’s 18th arrondissement, home to Lionel and Joséphine; Gabrielle, an ex of Lionel’s who still aches for him; and Noé, nursing a crush on Joséphine. Dyads align, shift, break, and regroup among the foursome, jealousy simmering during an unforgettable scene at a café, in which Noé cuts in on a sweetly dancing Lionel and Joséphine as the Commodores’ “Night Shift” plays. Nonsexual filial devotion is immediately supplanted by heat and desire. Father and daughter’s comfortable life together will need to end—an inevitability that even Lionel recognizes as necessary, no matter how painful.

February 20

Claire Denis, “White Material” (2010)

Marking the first collaboration between two titans of French cinema—director Claire Denis and actress Isabelle Huppert—White Material unfolds as a fever dream, a haunting, enigmatic look at the horrors of colonialism’s legacy, a subject that Denis first explored in her semiautobiographical debut feature, Chocolat (1988). Set in an unnamed African country during an unspecified time, White Material centers on Maria Vial, a coffee-plantation owner who is blindly determined to continue her business while civil war rages on around her. Chaos engulfs the nation, but Maria implores her workers, many of whom have already fled, to stay and harvest the coffee crop. Amid the increasingly violent anarchy, an injured rebel leader known only as “the Boxer” takes refuge at Maria’s farm; she offers him assistance but then becomes too distracted by her obsession to harvest the beans. Maria’s folly—though she’s a native Frenchwoman who immigrated to Africa to exploit the land, she proudly distinguishes herself from “dirty whites”—is matched by the sheer madness of child soldiers roaming the country, rifles in one hand, stuffed animals in the other.

February 27

Philippe Lioret, “Welcome” (2008)

Both a study of a budding friendship and a compassionate look at the perils faced by illegal immigrants, Philippe Lioret’s Welcome centers on Bilal, a 17-year-old Iraqi Kurd who is stuck in Calais, in Northern France, and Simon, a recently divorced swimming teacher. Desperate to join his girlfriend in London, Bilal vows to swim across the English Channel if he has to, setting the stage for his meeting with Simon. The older man’s motives for helping Bilal train for his journey at first remain unclear: Is he trying to impress his ex-wife, Marion, who works for an organization that helps refugees? Soon, however, Simon develops a genuine bond with the teenage immigrant, growing increasingly more protective of him, even though he risks prosecution by caring for Bilal. Unmistakably a condemnation of xenophobia in France, Welcome also features richly drawn, fully fleshed-out lead characters; though not perfect, Bilal and Simon strive to be good, decent people. Acting veteran Lindon and first-time performer Ayverdi beautifully play off each other as Simon and Bilal slowly start to form a tender surrogate father-son connection.

Sponsored by the Williams College Department of Romance Languages and the Center for Foreign Languages, Literatures, and Cultures