Dir.
Claire Denis, France, 2008, 100 mins, subtitles
Cast:
Alex Descas, Mati Diop, Gregoire Colin
Review by Mike Bartlett
When the ten best lists of the last decade are drawn up, the whole era is going to look like a curious tribute to Yasujiro Ozu. Because the finest directors of our time – Hou H'siao-H'sien in Café Lumière (2003), Abbas Kiarostami in Five (2003) – have been genuflecting before the great Japanese master, both paying homage to his work and registering its influence on their own. Ozu was active from the silent period through to the early 1960s, first working in genre flicks before specialising in the shomin-geki, or domestic family drama. Now French filmmaker Claire Denis has picked up on his favourite motif from this latter stage, the relationship between father and daughter, most particularly with regards to her forthcoming marriage. The result is 35 Shots of Rum, an exquisite little gem buried in the boondocks of the summer season.
Lionel is a driver on the Paris metro. A widower, he brings up Josephine alone in a somewhat deserted block of flats where their only friends are Gabrielle, who clearly fancies herself as Lionel's partner, and Noé, who's chasing the daughter. We're introduced to these characters at a leisurely pace, with many ellipses in plot and actions dislocated from their direct consequence. The effect is one of observing life lived instead of constructed for camera. Furthermore, Denis's knowledge of the French-African community means this is one of the most sensitive and authentic portraits of immigrant culture in the West – neither relentlessly miserabilist (and therefore without hope), nor artificially positive and mired in political correctness.
In this regard, the profession of the lead character is well-chosen; the imagery of constant movement along parallel lines aptly sums up the relationship between Lionel's world and ours. Denis sees cultures as operating at tangents to each other, while essentially being of the same universe; hence the superb diversion halfway through when Josephine and Lionel travel to Germany to meet his addled mother-in-law and marvel at the quiet beauty of children parading the windswept roads in Halloween costume, their jack-o'-lanterns glowing eerily in the half-light. It should be utterly incongruous but we understand, almost through osmosis, that this is a world Lionel has been familiar with at some stage and to which he is still uncannily connected.
The film really takes flight in two particular sequences. The first is set in a bar towards closing time where Noé tries to assert his claim on Josephine by dancing awkwardly with her in front of the customers, only to be completely trumped by a father-in-law with sexual designs of his own on the barmaid. The control of music, character movement and framing is at its height here, suggesting the sensual curve of a woman's back and the aggressive attack of the male gaze as a series of integrated movements. Festival jurist Hamé has boldly claimed that Denis is the only French filmmaker “who knows how to film black skin” but this scene goes some way to justifying such a statement.
However, the most brilliant material belongs to René, Lionel's long-term colleague on the trains, who now faces a lonely retirement. His farewell party is the stand-out sequence of the film, showcasing a simple but deeply-felt performance from artist Julieth Mars Toussaint, the best in an embarrassment of riches from such a talented cast. Throughout the story, his character operates as a marker of mortality, a chorus figure who pops up every now and then to represent the destiny each one faces. But Toussaint's presence is so palpable that it's felt in every scene, even when he doesn't physically appear, making his fate far more than a minor sub-plot.
From the operatic imagery of Beau Travail (1999), Denis has moved to a gentler register of restrained observation, and her work has benefited immensely. The result is a kind of innocent faith in human beings but one which doesn't feel the need to varnish the truth – a rare virtue these days. In fact, this may be her best film to date. We can only hope Ozu continues to exert his influence on directors for generations to come.
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