Asphalte (2015)
Directed by Samuel Benchetrit

Film Review

Writer-turned-director Samuel Benchetrit turns dreary suburban life into something akin to a fairytale in Asphalte, his fifth and by far best film to date, weaving together three improbable encounters between lonely people, two of which are lifted directed from his 2005 anthology of stories, Début des Chroniques de l'asphalte.  Benchetrit is an eclectic filmmaker apparently willing to tackle any subject under the sun, but he has so far struggled to make much of an impact.  His promising thriller J'ai toujours rêvé d'être un gangster (2007) was followed by two dissimilar films - Chez Gino (2011) and Un voyage (2014) - that were marred by a surfeit of self-indulgence and the lack of a strong concept.  Asphalte more than makes up for this - an elegantly knitted together patchwork of slices of life that manages to be funny, heart-warming and incredibly true to life.

Anyone familiar with contemporary French cinema will know that the suburbs are a grim place, steeped in social deprivation, violence and solitude.   These days, the French word for suburbs - les banlieues - sounds like an expression of disgust.  Benchetrit's film reminds us of this fact with its depressingly grey palette and signs of urban decay everywhere we look, but, grim though it is, the suburbs are not the desolate wilderness we have come to expect.  The unlikely friendships that spring up spontaneously between three ill-matched pairs of people offer hope that even in the most life-sapping of environments there are little specks of magic to be found, like buttercups pushing their way up through cracks in a badly maintained pavement.

It's the mostly unlikely of places we would expect to find Isabelle Huppert - or rather an alter ego who hasn't been quite so fortunate in her career and ends up like Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard (1950), living in dismal solitude with nothing but her memories to keep her company.  Huppert shares a landing with a teenager (played by Jules Benchetrit, the director's son) who is lumbered with the William Holden job of drawing her out of herself and rekindling her dormant career.  If this sounds far-fetched, it is banal compared with a parallel story strand in which an Algerian woman befriends an astronaut who has just crash-landed on her roof.  Absurd as the situation is, the actors (Tassadit Mandi and Michael Pitt) play it out as if nothing could be more ordinary, and we can only be moved by the close bond that develops between the two characters as they shake hands across the cultural divide.  Meanwhile, a wheelchair bound Gustave Kervern pursues a weird kind of romance with Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, an affair that takes some odd turns as the characters' fetishes spark off another unlikely friendship.

Helped by some sterling performances from an impeccable cast and some very subtle writing, Asphalte is an enjoyably  quirky off-kilter comedy-drama that brims with charm and truth.  The clichés are kicked well and truly out of sight as the film zooms in on the relationships that develop between three pairs of individuals who start out looking like archetypes but soon become fully fledged human beings.  Whilst it doesn't exactly sell the idea of life in the suburbs, certainly not in low-cost housing estates where the lifts are always breaking down and people are afraid to open their front doors, the film convinces us that even in this loveless hell hole the sun does occasionally come out to shine.

Film Synopsis

After too strenuous a workout on his exercise bike, professional photographer Sternkowitz ends up in a wheelchair.   Unwilling to chip in for repairs to the lift of the apartment block where he lives, he is barred from using it and so only comes out at night.  On one of his nocturnal excursions, he meets a lonely nurse and persuades her to be his next model.  Jeanne, a retired actress who was big in the 1980s, has just moved into the same building.  As she unpacks her belongings she strikes up a friendship with one of her neighbours - a teenage boy, Charly, whose spends most of his time alone whilst his mother is away.  Charly encourages Jeanne to resume her career.  Another resident of the apartment block, an immigrant named Madame Hamida, is surprised when an American astronaut comes knocking on her door.  With her son in prison, Madame Hamida is only too happy to lodge the spacesuit-clad John McKenzie whilst he waits for NASA to come and collect him...