Eastern Boys (2014)
Directed by Robin Campillo

Film Review

Ten years after his idiosyncratic debut feature Les Revenants (2004) Robin Campillo returns to the director's seat for a second film constructed as an immigration-themed fable.  In the interim, Campillo has not been idle - he has been busy working as a screenwriter and editor for Laurent Cantet on such films as Entre les murs (2008) and Foxfire (2012).  Whilst it has an obvious connection with Campillo's first film, Eastern Boys is a considerably more satisfying piece of cinema, more subtle in its treatment of its underlying social themes and constructed with far more artistry and daring.  It is a film that tempts rather than seduces, with a hazy, fractured narrative and characters that remain opaque throughout, defying us to sympathise with them.  Campillo's dark exploration of the male psyche is part existential voyage of discovery, part twisted love story, but, like Les Revenants, it is predominantly a bleak commentary on a society that is ill at ease with itself and prone to a kind of intellectual zombification brought about by materialistic self-interest and moral cowardice.

Eastern Boys is essentially a zombie film in reverse.  The opening scene set in the Gare du Nord reminds us of the mall sequences in George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978), with soulless hoards milling about without purpose or hope.  When we first meet him, the main protagonist Daniel (magnificently played by Olivier Rabourdin) is not too far removed from your average flesh-eating zombie, a non-person who breaks the monotony of his 'living dead' bourgeois existence by preying on vulnerable young men who are willing to sell their bodies for the price of a croissant.  The predator becomes the victim when his prey turns up with his own zombie-like entourage and begin their own feeding frenzy, which involves pillaging an apartment's worth of expensive consumer goods (another sly nod to Romero's film).  In these dazzling first two acts none of the characters appears to have any trace of humanity and none of them engages our sympathy.  What the film foists upon us is a grotesque parody of modern capitalism, the strong casually exploiting the weak for the most tawdry of motives.

It is not until the film's third act that something resembling genuine human feeling enters the frame.  The process of de-zombification (i.e. humanisation) begins when Daniel sees pretty boy Marek not just as an object for his own gratification but as someone with whom he can engage with at a deeper level - a lover, a friend, perhaps even a substitute son.  It is Daniel's emotional involvement with Marek that redeems him and enables him to free himself from the straitjacket of indifference to the plight of others.  It is not hard to see the allegory beneath this loosely constructed drama, one that invites us to cast a more humane eye over our prejudices about immigration.

Captivating both with its artistry and pertinence, Eastern Boys stands a good chance of being the most significant French film of 2014.  The performances and script are first rate, each investing the film with a sobering reality, but what impresses most is the bravura quality of Robin Campillo's mise-en-scène, beautifully supported by Jeanne Lapoirie's alluring photography.  There is an elegance to this film that is intoxicating, with images melded together with an almost mathematical precision.  The one stand out sequence is the scene in which the main character allows himself to be fleeced in his apartment by a gang of implausibly photogenic East Europeans.  A scene that should have the brutality of a gang rape ends up resembling a dreamlike orgy, lyrically sensual.  The weird poetry of this scene is forcefully inverted in the dramatic final act of the film, a heartstopping finale in which Daniel lives up to his name as he beards the East European lions in their lair.  Just when 2014 was shaping up to be a dull year for French cinema, Robin Campillo livens things up no end with this inspired and gutsy assault on our social conscience.

Film Synopsis

Marek, an illegal immigrant from the Ukraine, is hanging about at the Gare du Nord with his mates when he catches the attention of 40-something Daniel.  Admitting that he is willing to do anything for cash, Marek accepts the latter's invitation to his comfortable Paris appartment.  But Daniel gets more than he bargained for when the handsome youngster turns up on his doorstep with his gang of East European petty criminals.  Helpless, Daniel can only watch as Marek's friends help themselves to his possessions.  The next day, he is surprised when Marek shows up again, alone and apparently willing to conclude their business arrangement.  The last thing Daniel expected to happen was to fall in love...