Robert
Guediguian is the French writer-director who, in a run of films either side of
his UK breakthrough, 1997’s Marius and Jeannette,
established himself as the closest Gallic equivalent to our own Ken Loach –
some going, in a naturally left-leaning national film industry. The Snows of Kilimanjaro, again set
among Marseille’s working classes, starts out as a study of a marriage, and
what happens to it when the male half of the equation – Jean-Pierre
Darroussin’s sturdy union rep Michel – is laid off from his job on the docks,
several weeks before the couple’s thirtieth anniversary.
For
some while, the film’s dramas are no more pressing than those of everyday life,
though the leads can’t fail to pull you in: Darroussin, about as dependable a
pair of well-worn hands as the world cinema currently possesses, is even
compelling when set to shelling peas and listing his favourite rock tracks to
wife Marie-Claire (Ariane Ascaride). Then the film and its characters are
sideswiped by a breach of trust that robs the couple of their retirement plans
– and suddenly we’re left watching the consequences of this act, and a very
different film indeed.
What’s
particularly complex about The Snows of
Kilimanjaro is that those betraying this community’s values aren’t the
stuffed shirts and functionaries Loach has traditionally looked to in creating
his antagonists. Rather they come from within – and it’s a testament to
Guediguian’s even-handedness that he chooses to follow these characters back to
their cramped, scantly furnished boltholes, and to show us, plainly yet
compassionately and without condescension, why it is they’ve done what they
have. Seeing this with his own eyes, the supremely class-conscious Michel is
left weighing up whether he can bring himself to shop one of his own.
Such
a synopsis makes the film sound on the heavy side, but in fact it’s
distinguished by a supreme lightness of touch. Guediguian makes much of his
sunkissed location, leavening his characters’ hardships with the songs, dancing
and drinking that helps them get through the day. (The title derives from a chanson sung by the youngsters at Michel
and Marie-Claude’s anniversary celebrations.) As if this wasn’t populist
enough, the narrative turns on the whereabouts of a vintage comic book, an
artefact that very pointedly connects the current movie fad for superheroes
back to the real world.
Its
thesis – that the recession shouldn’t put the squeeze on our humanity – is set
out in a series of deftly written, superlatively performed scenes, in which
even those elements that might verge on the idealised, such as Ascaride’s
unfailingly patient and loving wife, are grounded with notes of grit and wit.
It’s rare to see a fiction film this engaged with the state of things – much
less one that also operates so well, and so touchingly, as a love story.
Guediguian uses harsh reality and experience to better shape and define his
characters: he takes the so-called quiet lives overlooked by those in positions
of power, and elevates them to the standing of very fine drama indeed.
The Snows of Kilimanjaro opens in selected cinemas from today.
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