Guediguian returns to the mean streets of Marseille in his latest film. Commenting on the city’s explosive mix of class, racism and the pervasiveness of drugs, the film focuses on a black ex-con trying to go legit, a woman whose single mum teen daughter is a junkie prostitute, and a pseudo-liberal architect whose wife despises him because of his political hypocrisy. With his sparse, documentary style, Guediguian weaves together the characters’ lives so that each is part of the backdrop for the other. The personal and the political are poetically, emphatically intertwined, and the effect is wrenching.
La Ville est tranquille
Directed by Robert Guédiguian