A Potpourri of Vestiges Review
By Murtaza Ali Khan
Last year, about 160 years
after Victor Hugo wrote his magnum opus Les Misérables, the French filmmaker of
Malian origin, Ladj Ly, came out with a French language film of the same name.
The film premiered at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival where it won the Jury Prize
in the festival’s main competition. Ladj Ly’s Les Misérables was subsequently
picked as the French entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 92nd
Academy Awards. The film went on to get nominated for the Oscar but eventually
lost out to Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite.
The main connection between Ladj
Ly’s film and Hugo’s novel is that it is set in Montfermeil—situated in the
eastern suburbs of Paris—where an important part of the novel is set. However,
as opposed to Hugo’s novel, which offered a scathing criticism of the 19th
French society which mostly constituted of the French people, Ladj Ly’s film offers
a critical examination of the plight of the immigrant population in
Montfermeil, mostly belonging to the African and Arabic ethnicities.
The film ends with a famous quote from Hugo’s classic novel: “Remember this, my
friends: there are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad
cultivators.” What Hugo is trying to tell through these lines is that those who
are actually supposed to care and look after the society often fail in doing
their duty miserably. It’s a reminder of the responsibility that the government
has towards its people—a duty that every government must undertake to the best
of its abilities.
After a successful run at
the festivals all across the globe, Les Misérables is finally hitting the
Indian theatres. At the recently concluded 45th César Awards, the hard-hitting
political drama Les Misérables took home the Best Film award part from 3 other
awards. After bringing critically acclaimed films such as Shoplifters, Ash is
the Purest White and Yomeddine to Indian screens, Sanjay Suri (KAHWA
Entertainment) and Srinivasan Narayan (In2Infotainment) & C A Films are now
presenting Les Misérables. It is being distributed by Rakesh Sippy (Raksha
Entertainment). As part of the promotions ahead of the film’s release, Alexis
Manenti (co-screenwriter and one of the film’s protagonists) and Omar Soumare
(actor) also visited India recently.
Les Misérables is a
politically charged thriller that is relentless in its critique of police and
administration. Few films in the recent times have questioned the role of authorities
in a modern society like Ladj Ly’s film does. Les Misérables may remind some
viewers of Costa Gavras’ 1969 masterpiece ‘Z’ which was an adaptation of the Greek
novel of the same name by Vassilis Vassilikos. Dibakar Banerjee’s 2012 film Shanghai
was also based on it. While Les Misérables may not be in the same pedigree as Z,
it never really loosens its vice-like grip. The brewing tension can be felt
right from the word go and as the narrative progresses the volcano threatens to
erupt any moment but somehow it doesn’t until the very end when finally all
hell breaks loose.
Rating: 8/10
A version of this review was first published in The Sunday Guardian.
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