Goutte d'Or

I don't know why, but I thought about Karim Dridi's films atmosphere when I watched this one. It is far from being uninteresting, but I could never get totally inside it, I also don't now why. Karim Leklou is convincing, as usual, in the quack character, but the overall structure of the film is maybe ankward. Something is wrong or missing. However, the plot is really unusual and I like this eighteen arrondissement of Paris - Goutte D'Or - settings, it describes very well the surroundings and people living here. This is a social drama, in the very French tradition. The film maker gave us seven years ago another interesting movie: NI LE CIEL NI LA TERRE. A very unusual topic too. I also reviewed it.

Karim Leklou is an odd-looking actor. He has a scared doe look about him. As if he were continually tracked by some hunter. I have seen him in other films too and same there.

Here it is a total asset. The synopsis on this tells you rather too much 😉 yes he is a conman but if you try and con Spirit expect pretty much what happens to him in this piece.

So he cons people in distress with a mate and a computer reading their info on their social media hacked off their phone and then mirrors it back to them

Seems sketchy to me as a scheme but ok. We have seen film before like this especially Steve Martin in Leap of Faith (1992)

AND THEN enter the feral Tangerine children as good as any gamines from Colombia or Brasil at the best of times. "Gamines de la calle," "Meninos de rua," and "Enfants de la rue" Here they blow into town into La Goutte D'or; this street and district in Paris at the base of Montmartre Hill in the 18th Arrondissement (District) of Paris

Horsing around with mediumship he finds Spirit actually uses him to locate a murdered street child dumped on a building site on the edge of town near the Périphérique (Outer Expressway)

This is excellent all throughout the Senegalese/Malian community getting shirty with his practices; the "gamines" the locale the inside of his flat the constant seediness and threat pervading every scene; his nutty father; the interweaving of Moghrebi Arabic and French and ways of being

The pace throughout is deliberate and fox-like ... the acting excellent from all adults and kids alike; not a film one is likely to forget highly highly highly recommended ....

PS ha it had been niggling at me who does this actor remind me of? And then the penny dropped Ian Curtis 🙃