La ville est tranquille

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

A superb film dealing with some of the sensitive issues in France today. I would recommend this to anyone who has a rose tinted view of la belle vie en France as it does not pull any punches when dealing with social issues faced by many - not just in France but in much of the western world.

I watched this film in it's native French language so I may have missed some of the nuances but nonetheless it had the power to affect me and make me quite painfully aware of the issues shown.

Having visited the beautiful tourist side of Marseilles this film, and seen it as a back drop to this drama, the film presented a side I haven't seen before but could relate to through the careful placing of landmarks. It's a pity that we don't see films like this on British TV too often or at a watchable hour!

In the contemporary Marseilles, Michèle (Ariane Ascaride) is a worker in the fishing market. She supports her family, composed by her unemployed husband, her addicted daughter Fiona (Julie-Marie Parmentier) and her granddaughter Ameline. Fiona prostitutes to buy drugs. Paul (Jean-Pierre Darroussin) is a stevedore, who betrays his colleagues and the union in a strike and buy a taxi with his indemnity. Gérard (Gérard Meylan) is a mysterious owner of a bar. Abderramane (Alexandre Ogou) is a black man who left jail and has an affair with a bourgeois. The lives of these characters are interconnected along the story. This movie is about ordinary people and touches in serious wounds in most of the worldwide societies, like unemployment, drugs, violence, crime, prostitution, prejudice against immigrants, loneliness, racism, low salaries, corrupts politicians. There is one particular scene that really touched me, when Michèle comments that only books have happy end. The title "The Town is Quiet" is very ironical and unfortunately the plot shows reality. I do not know if Robert Guédiquian wants to give some hope to the viewer, with that boy magnificently playing the piano he has finally bought in the end, but I found the story very bitter and pessimist. The direction and the performance of the cast are outstanding, and the soundtrack is excellent, highlighting Janis Joplin singing 'Summertime' and 'Cry Baby'. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): 'A Cidade Está Tranquila' ("The Town is Quiet")

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.

This is a production not so much of the French film industry as the Marseille `film co-operative' headed by Robert Guédiguian (`Marius et Jeanette', `A la place du cour'). The same group have been making low-budget films on the theme of working class life for 20 years, and on the evidence of this one they are just getting better. What distinguishes their films is not so much the left –wing viewpoint mixed with obscure French philosophy (sorry M. Foucault) both of which are present, but an interesting combination of super-realist, almost documentary presentation and a decidedly melodramatic storyline.

In this film Ariane Ascaride plays a woman in her late thirties, old before her time, who is the sole support of her family (hubby has been out of work for three years). She toils by night in the fish markets, but this is not enough. Her 16 year old daughter, Fiona (Julie-Marie Parmentier) has already both a baby and a serious heroin addiction. After finding her daughter doing oral sex for money in the living room of their tiny flat, Michèle goes on the game herself, with no great success, although she does enlist the rather dopey Paul (Jean-Pierre Darroussin), a docker turned taxi-diver, as a regular customer. She turns to an old acquaintance, Gérard (Gérard Meylan), to supply her with heroin for Fiona. Meanwhile, Viviane (Christine Brucher), a drama teacher from a more refined neighbourhood, becomes involved with Abderramane, (Alexandre Ogou) a young black ex-con she had met while teaching a group of prisioners. Needless to say, things do not go smoothly. The storylines are topped and tailed by the quest of a Armenian immigrant boy for a decent piano to match his precocious talent.

The film is beautifully crafted; the various stories are brought together in a powerful and shocking conclusion. The scenes between mother and daughter are painful to watch, but justifiably so. Their situation is really not much to do with politics and Foucault, after all drugs plague the middle class as well, but Michèle has only her daughter. Pitched against the personal tragedy there is the plight of the workers as a whole; cast out of employment by mechanisation on the docks they are driven into the arms of the neo-fascists, to whom, of course, they are mere cannon–fodder. But the political viewpoint of the film is suggestive rather than strident, more a background to the personal dramas than the main theme, which what happens to personal relationships when put under unbearable pressure.

Despite the drama and tragedy, there is some subtle humour in the film. Where a flashback sequence is required at one point the director uses a clip from a movie made by him 20 years ago which happens to feature the same actors. There is the bumbling but kind-hearted cabbie, his retired left-wing parents and Michèle's husband to provide some amusement also. The look and feel of Marseille is conveyed beautifully; this reviewer last visited the place 25 years ago and got the distinct feeling that the tatty but colourful town of those days is now distinctly uglier and a great deal more dangerous. Guédiguian, however, has not given up on the place and he and his troupe continue to tell compelling stories of Marseille life.