We
Alice Diop tracks the lives of multicultural communities living alongside a commuter rail line in Paris.
Born in the outskirts of Paris, Alice Diop is a filmmaker of Senegalese descent who is now embarking on her first feature with actors. We, however, its immediate predecessor, is part of the tradition she has built up as a documentarian intent on capturing ordinary lives in the area where she grew up. Her third full-length film, it is a work which she regards as having been inspired by a literary source, namely the book by the late François Maspero which appeared just over thirty years ago and bears the title Roissy Express: A Journey through the Paris Suburbs. Indeed, it is the case that We includes many shots of RER B commuter trains: to some extent they provide a link as her film eavesdrops on the lives of some of those who take the train. Among them is her own sister Ndeye Sighane Diop who is a home health aide who looks after elderly people, but the first person we see is Ismael Soumaïla Sissoko who has worked in France for twenty years (we see him fixing cars) and who is supporting his mother back in Mali.
At one point, a shot of an elderly woman in a train becomes the cue for Alice herself to look back and to reflect on her own parents who are seen in old video tapes. Elsewhere an elderly woman reminisces about her history and on how she came to Paris from another part of the country, married an Italian whom she was able by chance to save from suicide and subsequently stayed on in the capital. Later we glimpse younger people chatting, listening to French song or watching fireworks, while on a grim historical note one segment of the film is set in a gallery where Jews who were deported during the Second World War are commemorated.
Since there is no attempt to provide a commentary that links these various segments, the viewer is left to speculate on the choice of content but, later on, two hints are given regarding what it is that shapes the film. The first of these comes up in a conversation between the filmmaker and a writer whom she admires, the septuagenarian Pierre Bergounioux. In a scene less memorable than that with the philosopher Brice Parain included by Godard in Vivre Sa Vie (1962) but clearly significant for all that, the two of them talk about Molière, Rousseau and the functions of an artist. Alice expresses her own desire to capture ordinary details in people’s lives that could otherwise be lost to memory. The other pointed scene is the last one which brings us full circle since it elaborates on the film’s prologue which has shown a father, Marcel Balnoas, whose way of life is entirely divorced from that of all the others seen subsequently: he is a hunter on the lookout for deer and with him is a boy being introduced to the hunt.
By bookending the film in this way Diop is emphasising how any idea of who the French people are has to take account of a wide range that encompasses class distinctions. Meanwhile, the numerous references to outsiders living in Paris who yet feel unwelcome (be it to a greater or lesser extent) is a thread that runs through the film. But what Alice Drop brings together in We needs a tighter structure if we are to feel that it holds together (it may do so in retrospect, but not as it unfolds over its almost two-hour running time). We is certainly an interesting venture but, while it is helped by Diop’s filmic sense and by the quality of the photography, it lacks the clarity of purpose needed for one to be constantly engaged by it. Furthermore, I was haunted by another French film that shares some of Diop’s aims here albeit that it is not a documentary. 35 Shots of Rum made by Claire Denis in 2008 also looked at the ethnic mix in the suburbs of Paris and featured train shots. Furthermore, it was a work that Denis acknowledged to have been influenced by the films of Ozu, the absolute master of portraying the everyday to telling effect. It's a comparison that does We no favours despite its good intentions, but Diop’s film nevertheless won a prize at the Berlin Film Festival in 2021.
Original title: Nous.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Featuring Ismael Soumaïla Sissoko, Ndeye Sighane Diop, Pierre Bergounioux, Alice Diop, Marcel Balnoas, Ethan Balnoas, Florence Roche, Bamba Sibi, Hawa Camara, Océane Mafouta, Tacko N’Diaye.
Dir Alice Diop, Pro Sophie Salbot, Screenplay Alice Diop, Ph Sarah Blum, Sylvain Verdet and Clement Alline, Ed Amrita David.
Athénaïse/Procirep/La Region Ȋle-de-France-Mubi.
115 mins. France. 2021. UK Rel: 29 June 2022. No Cert.