Les Misérables

France at its peak and one of the best films of the year! Inspired by the events of 2005 and set in present-day Montfermeil, where Victor Hugo's “Les Misérables” was set in 1862. The film has no story and no positive characters, taking place over the course of one tense day. It will make you anxious, uncomfortable, your hair stand on end, your mouth wide open!!! Here, the world's greatest scum has gathered and after watching the film, you will avoid France with the greatest of arcs. There are swine cops, gypsies, blacks, Muslims, child gangs, in short, I have not been as uncomfortable watching a movie as I was here for a long time. The film has a very fast pace, nerve wracking suspense, an oppressive atmosphere, chilling scenes and the final child revenge is razor sharp! I recommend this one to the French. Story****, Action****, Humor>No, Violence****, Entertainment*****, Music***, Visuals****, Atmosphere******, Suspense****.9/10. (22/04/2020)

A 90% great contribution to the category of crime thrillers from the French banlieues that distinguishes itself from the competition by its effort to portray a broad spectrum of relationships between different factions and generations, which are connected by a disparate trio of police officers. But where other films ended, Les Misérables prepares the ground for a climax that will push the whole story to much stronger, more serious and more sophisticated heights. This feature-length debut, expanding the director’s short film of the same name into a more complex fresco of contemporary France, thus brings forth provocative contemplation on more general themes connected with education, patterns of behaviour and pride and rage. The themes that Mathieu Kassovitz addressed years ago in the ground-breaking Le Haine are now back with a vengeance in Les Misérables. (19/05/2019)

Based on a single film, I can't estimate whether a francophone Spike Lee was born, but as a feature-length debut, Les Misérables is an extraordinary film full of energy, uncompromisingness, and rebellion against the system. After its release in France, it rightfully dominated the movie theaters and won every award it could. Thematically related to the Danish film Shorta, it is certainly above average and impressive, but fundamentally, it's no more than an action film with a certain social subtext. Les Misérables has a broader scope and showcases the notorious Parisian housing estates inhabited by unemployed (and often unemployable) immigrants and outsiders. Ladj Ly shows the ghettos as a complex ecosystem controlled by local hustlers, criminals, and Islamists. The police can only futilely try to keep up and create the impression that the state is in control of the situation. During two intense shifts of a three-member police patrol, the director shows what goes on there and who or what one can encounter. It's not a routine crime story but a genre film that significantly transcends into social drama. The carousel of boredom, poverty, and cultural and national unanchoredness creates a highly explosive Molotov cocktail that burns anyone who gets in its way. Overall impression: 90%. (14/02/2021)

(SPOILER ALERT!) Les Miserables has a somewhat slower pace, charting a routine day in the life of several groups of people on a Parisian housing estate. But the routine is disrupted by the theft of a lion cub and an accident in which one boy is injured. The detectives are caught up in a whirlwind of events that builds to an uncomfortably raw finale that makes you dread to think if such things really happen. Apart from the authentic portrayal of the disputes between gangs and the police, it is definitely worth mentioning the sometimes magically psychedelic music, which reminded me of the work of Éric Serra. (31/01/2020)

Ethnically wild self-governing suburbs, that's my thing. In an age of fearful consumerist bourgeoisie, it somehow comforts me to know that metropolises around the world are unable to cope with near-autonomous areas where law enforcement, local authorities, and the mafia struggle day in and day out to keep the pressure cooker under the lid. Les Misérables has been much compared to Training Day, but in contrast, the confrontational scenes between the SCU and the residents of Montfermeil are shot in such a way that everyone here seems like a hostile and unknown third party (when the SCU bullies little boys in the doorway of a house, for example, the scene is shot from inside the house, not from behind the backs of the SCU whose story we are following). Up until the last moment, I assumed that the film would end along with that one day, because everything seemed to be wrapped up. Which actually projected the characters' cynicism onto me as a viewer, because everything was definitely not concluded, and then the subsequent explosive finale with Haneke's White Ribbon punchline offered an interesting and controversial vision that, by the nature of these risky suburbs, there's a far greater possibility of youth getting satisfaction for its considerable lawlessness than in the normal world. All it takes is one wave of a police shotgun. PS: it made me very nervous that the main character's face looks like the skin of an NPC from Half-Life 2 (30/04/2020)

Ladj Ly is proving to be one hell of a storyteller as a debut filmmaker. Through an unusually long exposition, he first thoroughly introduces the viewer to the setting, only to later develop a conflict that is, to the eye, trite but extremely powerful in its message in a very careful and evocative way. The Parisian suburbs in his portrayal are indeed reminiscent of a jungle, where the biggest source of problems does not flow from this or that social group, but from the twisted nature of human character (and it frankly does not matter on which side). Moreover, the narrative concept of having the entire plot take place over two days brilliantly adds to the much greater urgency of the story. Don't really expect a conciliatory ending here. (27/06/2020)

Given the title Les Misérables, I would have expected a bit more of a connection to Victor Hugo's famous novel, so I'm quite disappointed. The beginning of the film and the intense ending are okay, but the subplot with the stolen lion cub seems a bit contrived to me. I was bored quite often while watching the film, not to mention that it was impossible to sympathize with anyone at all. (65%) (09/09/2021)