35 Doses de Rum

The quiet Lionel (played by the cool Alex Descas) lives with his grown up daughter Joséphine (newcomer Mati Diop) in a comfortable, albeit somewhat sterile, grey, contemporary apartment in a Parisian suburb. Life has unfortunately taken away Lionel's wife, and left the two-person family in a state of tranquil solitude, where the father and daughter lean on each other in the big wide world. This outside world is there, as their entourage, but they keep it at bay. Lionel knows they can not continue living like that indefinitely, and one day he will have to let his daughter go, to live her own life, but silently he hopes that that day will be far off. When their upstairs neighbour Noé, who has always been there, announces that he will leave, Joséphine gets angry. It is at that moment that she too realises that the world around her can not be forever frozen. It is time to look ahead.

The small family is running on a borrowed time, but happy to be together while they still can. They are compared to Gabrielle, the family friend, who lives in hope and the afore mentioned neighbour Noé, who lives, disorientated, in painful past of his parents' death. Both of them cling to Lionel and Joséphine for their stability, for the calm love they share. As a viewer, you can not help but feel that Lionel "should" be living with Gabrielle and Joséphine with Noé, as that would be a more natural state than a grown-up girl living with her father. But of course, there are no rules to who who should be living with who. Or are there? When Lionel and Joséphine look to their future, what do they see? This in between state, at the end of the close-knit family life and the starting of your own, is the playing field of the film. 35 Rhums, is a very slow movie with a close attention to detail, reminiscent of Claire Denis' Vendredi Soir. We see what is going on, through the actions of the characters, leaving very little to be said. The consequence of such an approach is that you have to slow down the pace, to allow the audience time to take in those details. There lies the risk, and although I was taken in by characters, the "normal" gestures or running of the train through the urban landscape scenes are a little too customary to warrant such an exposure. Whether or not this will bother you is hard to judge, but you will need to be a bit indulgent.

Racially, the movie is quite a curiosity. Lionel is black and his wife was white so their daughter, evidently, is métis. So far all is normal. Joséphine's love interest and upstairs neighbour Noé is white. The family friend Gabrielle looks Caribbean. Still fine. Then we get to see his colleagues at the railways, the SNCF, and they are all black! Is there an SNCF line which hires only staff of African or Caribbean descent? Not very likely. And then there is Joséphine's university: the professor and all the students are black! Not even at the university of Martinique, where most people are black, is it an easy feat to write yourself in for a course where not a single white or other raced student has written himself in. What is the point of this bizarre image? Even if they were part of some community (e.g. Caribbean), then that would make more sense showing it in opposition to another French community (say mainstream or Chinese) rather then an artificial submersion. But they are not part of a subculture (no more than their own individuality) nor are the SNCF colleagues or the students. It is a strange touch which is unrealistic and seemingly without purpose.

Overall 35 Rhums is a carefully crafted film well worth its time, despite its weaknesses. Make sure you are not tired when you go it, to be able to take in the rhythm, as you are taken along the tracks in the Parisian behind-the-scenes. Lionel and Joséphine will linger with you long after the lights are back on.

I like it when the movie title itself is capable of concisely threading together the themes of the movie and yet retains a unique symbolic connotation. "35 shots of rum" is a good example. The audience were left with a question mark as to what the "35 shots of rum theory" meant to the father early on in the movie, and when leaving the cinema were probably rewarded with a sonorous answer which neatly highlights and summarises the point of the movie.

In a working class Parisian family which is disintegrated by the loss of an important member, what bonds the remaining members together and keep them going? What prevents them from lying flat on the rail and let trains run all over them and wrap them up as some may choose to? "35 shots of rum" provides us with a sincere, heartfelt and highly humanised conjecture through unraveling an intimate web of relationships within the family and the neighbourhood, and reveals to the audience what meanings of life are to the characters. The story-telling is commendable and loyal to its central film throughout, making the film a structurally condensed and coherent piece of study of humanity.

Claire Denis' 35 Shots of Rum is a poignant piece of cinema about the intimacy of a father and a daughter. They know they should part ways but leaving each other is emotionally challenging for both. On the other side, both have suiters awaiting on the margin, struggling with loneliness and unfulfilled desire.

In the background, we have an alternative view of Paris, a distorted, dirty, and ugly city. Most of the characters are colored, and they were simmering with revolutionary ideas and thwarted hopes.

The film lacks a coherent narrative. It's more like a distant view of family life at a random period. We don't know much about either Lionel, the father, or his daughter Josephine, but we could infer many things from their glances and the way they touch each other. What's connecting about them is their simplicity, charm, and ambiguous charisma, which is why they only find fulfillment in each other. Their lovers - Gabrielle and Noe - seem like outsiders, and they lack the vague aura of father and daughter.

I wouldn't say I liked the movie that much, although I appreciated the masterful camera work, the elegant pace, the implicit emotional tension, and the powerful performance of the actors. It's an excellent film, but something was lacking, which is probably fervor and warmth. Ozu tackled the same issue of father-daughter attachment, yet Ozu's picture has a glow, a depth of feeling and intimacy that transcends the subject.

Claire Denis' 35 Shots Of Rum is a sombre and humane look at a quartet of Parisians who experience loneliness, isolation and disconnection. Lionel (Alex Descas) is a train driver who lives with his daughter Josephine (Mati Diop). He has a seemingly casual relationship with taxi driver Gabrielle (Nicole Dogue) who seems invested in the relationship to a much greater degree than Lionel. And Noe (Gregoire Colin) who lives alone with his cat seems to have an interest in Josephine. The trouble is that all these characters are so wrapped up in their own loneliness, they fail to communicate with one another.

They are so wrapped up, however, that it takes their car to break down in the rain for them to open up to each other. Whether this is a good thing or not is a different question. Denis shoots the film in a desolate manner that has a complete (and fitting) lack of flair, which is a direct metaphor for the characters emotional emptiness. Claire Denis has named Japanese master Yasijuro Ozu as a main influence for the film, and it is quite obvious. The quiet, restrained dignity of Lionel, and the almost silent exchanges between the characters mirror Ozu's classics Late Spring and Tokyo Story. The film can be slow at time, but stick with it and it is richly rewarding. A complex film that is powerfully acted.

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I liked everything about this movie. I liked spending time with these characters, and the performances were spot on. I liked the moody aesthetic of the film, the music (I haven't heard "Nightshift" in YEARS!) and the cinematography fit beautifully. I liked how the relationships between the personalities gradually unfolded and revealed themselves. But the operative word here is "like." Although I can't find anything to criticize, I can't find anything that deserves exceptional praise either. It's a thoughtful movie, it's a nice movie... it's a good, solid understated drama. It just wasn't anything more than that. I often wondered if there was some subtext I wasn't picking up on, which is highly possible. For whatever reason, although I enjoyed it, it didn't leave much of an impression.