Les survivants

Luc Jabon tells in this movie the story of a man, Nicolas Roulet, who discovers the world again after 18 years in jail, for a revolutionary action that costed one life. We follow his steps in this world he almost forgot and how he reconnects with people, whether old comrades, family or new ones. If some of the action progress seems a bit too easy, I think that part is pretty solid and shows the difficulties to reconnect, all the more when you were fighting for a different world. It also show, with a kind point of view, the poverty stricken, homeless, lost.

On top of that, the aim of this movie is clearly to question activism and revolutionary violence: can activism only be expressed through action? And can that action be non-violent, or is revolution always violent out of necessity? However, it only show one side of the possibilities. Indeed, if Nicolas is haunted by the death he is responsible, we only see activist with the same conviction action is necessary. If the targets change, if we have one scene showing that Nicolas' dream of Albania proved quite wrong, the movie does not tackle the why: how a squat community shifts to actions? what are they standing for? Message of the movie is weakened in my opinion due to that.