The collapse of a Marseille tenement block in 2018, killing 8 people, opens director Robert Guédiguian’s film, with its aftermath informing events in his home city over the rest of the film.
At the heart of this story, that is bursting with humanity both personal and political, is Rosa (Ariane Ascaride), a woman of Armenian descent who works as a nurse, is the core of her family and is considering standing as a candidate at a local election. Both she and her brother Tonio (Gérard Meylan) were named after prominent left-wing figures by their poor father whose legacy to them was of principles not property. One of her sons, Sarkis (Robinson Stévenin), is involved with fellow activist Alice (Lola Naymark) who runs or rather commands the community choir in a local occupied church. Their raison d’être is to lobby the Local Authority about the city’s poor housing and to campaign to have la Place Homère, near where the building collapsed, changed to Place 5 Novembre 2018.
When Sarkis invites Alice to a meal to meet his family, their traditional Armenian dish of walnut and anchovy pasta, that is deeply imbued with their history, turns out to be a catalyst to expose differences in the couple’s expectations of marriage. Not only is Alice allergic to anchovies, but her evident ill ease in learning that her fiercely proud Armenian man believes in having big families to replace the dead of the past, evaporates the confidence she has when conducting a choir.
Alice’s estranged Dad, Henri (Jean-Pierre Darroussin), turns up after selling his bookshop, and an unlikely spark is ignited between him and his seemingly polar opposite, Rosa. He is quiet and thoughtful to her passionate demonstrativeness but their late in life love is both real and touching. Their separate counsel to the young couple helps them all move forward.
On Henri’s advice, Alice turns a community demonstration on the housing crisis into a coup de théâtreby orchestrating a powerful speech delivered by various voices citing the blind poet Homer, whose bust statue stands in the square that held his name but is now Place 5 Novembre 2018. This a major step in father and daughter being involved in each other’s lives again.
Rosa’s expression of holding on to her dreams while staying politically committed is manifest in her solo swimming scenes that serve to emphasise the very human trait of dreaming of the possibility of other lives.
With a dialogue delivered in clear French by the excellent cast, Guédiguian’s work, that features beautiful coastal shots of Marseille as well as streets in poorer parts of the city, is a thoughtful poetic blend of a good humane story and one of radical, hands-on politics with all the frustrations and satisfactions that these hold.
Running time: 106 mins
Irene Brown
Radio Summerhall Arts 