La ville est tranquille

I have JUST seen this film - literally an hour ago and was curious to come to IMDb and see what others thought because I really knew very little about this film before I went to see it. Basically it had an 8:30 pm showtime and that worked out better than other movies and their showtimes so there I was. I felt the film really had trouble finding it's footing in the first twenty minutes. The director was obviously building blocks and setting things up but I was pretty uninvolved, but then, once all these characters' lives start to intersect and the stories start to build, the film just grips you and won't let go. Not in any thriller kind of way, but in a very believable, yet depressing, but human, real life way. The director trusts his story and actors so much (the acting is top notch) that he just lets the camera stay still and show you what happens. Now, if this film was just bleak and nothing else, well, then I probably would have hated it, but there are real moments of true, selfless love and even at the end, signs of hope and beauty that makes the movie special. I could see how many people might dislike the film and even walk out in the beginning, but Overall, the film packs a punch, a wild emotional punch, but like many great dramas, it leaves you thinking a great deal about life and society and mankind (good and bad).

For a lot of cine buffs ,Marseille evokes the Pagnol Trilogy "Marius" ("Marius et Jeanette,get it?) "Cesar" and "Fanny".But be here now.This is 2000,no longer the thirties."La ville est tranquille" is a thoroughly contemporary movie,the despair of which sometimes recalling such works as "Rosetta".

Actually,it recalls in its form,Julien Duvivier's work,his movies made up of sketches particularly "sous le ciel de Paris"(1952) when all the subplots came together in an almost seamless whole.And as for despair

,Duvivier's movies were pessimism flesh on the bone. Guédiguian's story is more realist,more loachesque ,less melodramatic maybe less storybook or lyrical too.But that does not make a great difference:Duvivier and Kenneth Loach are influences every director can be proud of.

The backbone of "la ville est tranquille" (what an euphemism!) is a mother's struggle with her daughter's addiction,filmed with a realism hard to match.This is an absurd fight,because she's alone -she goes as far as prostituting herself to buy drugs-and because she actually helps her daughter in her fall.

But there are a lot of subplots,most of them as absorbing as the main story :sometimes they interfere with it .The taxi driver sequences,for instance ,do not seem to have a lot to do with it,but after a while a strong connection appears.And before the meeting,we already know the character:a man who 's not found a woman who's got what it takes,he's an old bachelor whose father and mother are longing to see him settled down.these parents are the only characters that have got something of Marcel Pagnol,they are definitely people of the past,not only because they are old,but because class struggle which they championed has become a thing of the past:the sequence in the taxi when the driver sings Pottier's "l'Internationale" in several languages is revealing for that matter.

Mini subplots give the movie substance:a meeting with a disquieting far right leader has a strong contemporary feel:"we like the Aliens,but we do prefer the French (of French extraction).Only the bourgeois couple and its sentimental -and intellectual - problems are irrelevant.

spoilers spoilers spoilers "La ville est tranquille" manages to give the audience a good dose of optimism though.one of the opening shots a young boy playing the piano in order to buy one :he's an Alien too and this vision is almost surrealist.At the very end of the movie ,when the audience seems to have lost any hope,a truck brings the piano to the child prodigy who begins to play.Then a crowd (of rejected?) gathers and ,for a while ,forgets all about its burden. end of spoilers

If there had been any doubts ,this movie finally and firmly placed R.Guédiguian among the greatest,most ambitious directors contemporary French cinema has produced.

A very humanistic film. The persons appearing are really of flesh and blood. Marseille and even France is described as a stagnating society where fascism and racism is increasing. The old methods of the socialist/communist movement to improve the living conditions are generally regarded as obsolete. This is of course a very pessimistic view. But in the same time we feel that the film is taking side for the oppressed persons. Besides the misery we also meet men and women with warm hearts. The way the persons appear and how the story is told is so captivating that this must be regarded as one of the great films this year.

One is used to British director's Leach and Loach concerning furious films about the working class, but Robert Guédiguian beats them. Not that his fury is lesser, but it's more quiet and therefore maybe more effective. This is about Marseille working class, drawn down in every aspect because of the globalization and a capitalism which is stronger and more destructive than for many decades. Even the conventional left-wing politicians seem to have abdicated completely and that is why Le Pen is very popular among these people. If you see this movie you indeed might understand why.

Beside the critic of capitalism and especially it's maybe most disgusting form, the drug trade, there is also drama here. You get really engaged in ten people's life and the people are not uncomplicated, "although" they are working class. The acting is marvelous, especially from Ariane Ascaride, Jean-Pierre Darroussin and Gérard Meylan.

See this one. It's almost a masterpiece

"The Town is Quiet" is a plaintive and somber look at the lives of several ordinary people who by choice or by chance find extraordinary solutions to their ordinary problems. Set in Marseilles, this typically fatalistic French flick weaves an austere story around loosely interconnected characters including a taxi driver, a fish packer, a bar owner, a drug addicted mother, etc. as it takes on issues from drugs to politics to assassination...etc. sans the tinsel and sensationalism of the usual Hollywood fare. Not likely to have broad appeal, this 2+ hour long subtitled film will be most appreciated by realists with a taste for French cinema. (B)