Factories will close and the workers' future is uncertain. In the meantime, Gilbert does odd jobs at the port and meets his friends at the Estaque bar: Le Mute, imperturbable, Banane the painter who is always off work, Boule, Gilbert's brother, the most fragile, aware, however, that he risks ending up in "Baumettes"jail , and then Mario, the trucker who hesitates between his family and his friends.
By several respects ,Robert Guédiguian works like John Cassavetes used to do:like him ,he has his own actors (including his wife Ascaride) he uses in every movie ,but his approach is less oblique than that of the American director.
This is his first effort,and like "ki lo sa " and "Dieu vomit les tièdes ",probably his least accessible. Hailed as "regional" cinema -in a sense Pagnol's was,but the artists 'work cannot be compared -,this debut is a chronicle of the life of workers on the dole ,with the exception of Mario who's a married man with child trucker but feels that time of his youth is passing him by and longs for the time he used to spend with his buddies; buddies who drag out an uncertain existence
in the cafés where they wash their ennui down with pastis 51 and pernod 45; little by little, theit mild rebellion against society becomes more and more risqué: they don't pay their bills in cafés and cheap restaurants,steal cars ,and even try robbery; for one of them ,it will be "le dernier été " (the last Summer)
Gérard Meylan and Ariane Ascaride -who has a small supporting part here but would become the principal in works to come - are part of Guédiguian's cinema company ; this director's work deals with working people, and his filmography ,does not lack in unity or cohesion ;in 2024, he remains one of the most important French metteur en scène .
