Nosotros

The film covers a variety of stories, sometimes completely unconnected. There's a careworker visiting her elder clients, there's old footage of people's parents reminiscing about their journeys to Paris, there's an interview with a writer (or rather, a conversation between director and the writer that served as her inspiration), scenes of a hunt, some priests reading some king's last words to an audience in a grand church, part of a film in a local museum about deported Jews, kids in the banlieues rolling down a hill on cardboard. Some scenes are funny, others tender, others (such as the church scene and the hunt scene) so unsympathetic and dull I don't know why the director filmed or included them. While I liked her ambition - I've never seen a film attempt to include so many social locations - it seemed disjointed and overly long and ultimately dragged.

Very interesting and cutting edge documentary of the Parisian metropolis; portraying a diverse panorama of people. What makes this film special is the sensitivity and empathy it encompasses towards all Parisians living in the metropolis - from children, senior citizens to the upper echelon of French society.

Alice Diop introduces us to individuals or groups who live along the RER B train line in the Paris region. It sounds like an interesting concept, but it's not a subject. She shows us individuals: for example, homeless people, dependent pensioners, short-hunting enthusiasts.

Some are family members. Some are not. Parts document, like the garage mechanic from Mali who lives in a van and repairs in parking lots. Or the nurse who visits the elderly, the section with the most hysteria. She also shows us a motley crew of individuals, including an intellectual and fanatics of the short-hunting protocol.

The whole is disjointed, non-linear in its unfolding and therefore in its message. In the long run, this leads to boredom (almost 2 hours for a documentary is too long). We do understand the personal side of certain subjects, with the evocation of the director's father, and her sister in the home help segment. But boredom sets in. And it's not helped by the many transitional shots of landscapes that punctuate the film's movements. There are also plenty of shots of the city (the Paris suburbs), gardens and woods. These contribute to the atmosphere. But they also contribute to the feeling of duration, but as they don't convey any information on the subject, they bore us.

Hmmm - I'm not really sure what we've got here. It's basically a series of slices of life which we're told are linked by the commuter line but, to be honest, they could be linked by anything, or nothing. We have some people looking at a stag, a man from Mali who fixes cars, some people who go to church, Alice's sister doing her rounds as a nurse and a load of other randoms. It's also interspersed with some of Alice's old home videos. In some ways it's nice that it doesn't concentrate on grimness, but it all feels a bit disconnected. The vignettes are definitely sensitively shot, but sometimes so sensitively that you struggle to tell exactly who it's about or the point it's trying to make - or if it's trying to make a point at all. And, well - I think that's pretty much all I have to say on the "plot".

As well as being sensitively shot, it's also beautifully shot. There are lots of nicely framed urban shots and also some beautiful countryside shots - Alice has a good eye for such things. And the scenes featuring interviews are also well done - you get a good natural feeling about everyone. I would however say she's overly fond of a static shot with unrelated dialogue playing over it, but I guess that's just what she likes.

But - well, how do I put this? What's the bloody point to it all!? The only bit that really engaged me was with Alice's sister where we at least had some human interaction - and it's interesting that it's mostly old white people being treated by the younger black nurse, but the conversations are lovely. Apart from that I just felt a bit lost in this film - if it wasn't subtitled, I would have given up watching it about 20 minutes in but even so I didn't exactly give it 100% of my attention. I assume the thinking behind it is that "we" (as in France or Paris) is made up of a whole load of "we" (as in people), but that's hardly world-shattering thinking now, is it?

So it's a "No!" from me, but I'm actually really struggling to think who would like this film - maybe if you had a detailed knowledge of the railway line in question and recognised all the neighbourhoods then it would make a bit more sense (but I have to say I'm not convinced). Otherwise I feel you'd have to be a dedicated student of human nature who was prepared to watch this multiple times to gain the full effect.

The film is both observational and metaphorical, the observational bits are dull, and the metaphorical bits are obvious. It is meant as some sort of tapestry stitched out of random unconnected stories of people living in the Paris suburbs, and the disconnect is part of the point. But none of these scenes, nor the home video fragments that reflect Diop's upbringing in these same suburbs, makes much of an impression. I don't know why the rich folks at the beginning and at the very end of the film, in which they engage in a foxhunt, allowed Diop to film them as part of her metaphorical statement. If a white filmmaker used a black subculture to make a negative comparison, they would have been accused of perpetuating a colonial gaze and hounded out of filmmaking by the moral watchdogs of the documentary industry. I think filmmakers of any color, gender, or culture should be able to use their talents to tell stories about any and all people, as long as they show empathy and respect and skill.