Le Premier venu (2008)
Directed by Jacques Doillon

Film Review

In Le Premier venu director Jacques Doillon revisits one of his favourite subjects, a fraught love triangle involving three emotionally repressed young people, but on this occasion he uses it as the pretext for a powerful modern fable of metamorphosis and redemption.  With its improbable melange of social realism, sentimental drama, film noir and black comedy, the film plunges the spectator into a bizarre odyssey of human experience and reminds us that even the most loathsome specimen of humanity is capable of being reformed if it is subjected to compassion and understanding.   It is a film that is particularly relevant for our time and it offers a beacon of hope.  It challenges the prevailing view that the problems of delinquency and breakdown in social cohesion can only be remedied by authoritarian means and suggests that a more humane and tolerant approach is more likely to help resolve today's social ills.

As ever, Doillon assembles a principal cast of exceptional ability for what is easily his most potent and engaging film in a decade.   Comfortably ensconced in the role of the wild young tearaway Costa is the magnificent Gérald Thomassin, who compels us to sympathise with his character even when he is acting like a hardboiled thug who has just sat on a drawing pin.  It is a virtual reprise of Thomassin's role in Doillon's earlier film Le Petit criminel (1990), the film that marked the actor's screen debut and won him a César in 1991.  The scenes in which Costa, the estranged father, attempts to bond with his infant daughter are particularly poignant and feel more viscerally cruel than Costa's frequent excursions into Dirty Harry-style violence.  Thomassin brings a strained, barely perceptible humanity to his portrayal that makes his character appear more a victim than a villain, and it is hard not to cheer when he takes as his hostage a loathsome estate agent, someone who (arguably) poses a greater threat to societal cohesion.

Guillaume Saurrel plays the other lead male character, the ineffectual cop Cyril, having made his film debut in Doillon's Carrément à l'Ouest (2001).  In both personality and acting style, Saurrel is the prefect counterpoint to Thomassin.  In contrast to Costa's pent-up aggression and apparent disregard for others, Cyril is passive and inoffensive, qualities that equate to contemptible weakness in the face of the assertive whirlwind that Costa represents.  The one moral character in this maelstrom of internal and external conflict is Camille, played with immense charm and sensitivity by Clémentine Beaugrand, a former arts student in her debut screen role.  Camille, a frustratingly ambiguous character, fulfils the function of the healer and guardian angel - it is her role to resolve the crisis and allow Costa to escape from his personal hell.  More than anything, it is the highly nuanced and engaging performances from the film's three lead actors (deftly guided by Doillon) that makes Le Premier venu such an authentic and meaningful piece of cinema.

Even though it is easy for us to engage with the three main characters, we never fully get to understand them.  Costa, Camille and Cyril each retains a certain mystique and this adds to the tension in the film's more dramatic moments (which, strange as it may seem, are also the funniest).  As the film builds to its dramatic denouement, anything seems possible, and the cold desolation of the seascape setting (the Baie de Somme at its bleakest) reflects the nihilistic outcome that now appears certain.  The film's ending ought to be totally predictable, and yet it comes as a total surprise because there is a side to the three characters that we had not appreciated.   When it comes to the breakdown of relationships and delinquent behaviour we have become so inured to bad outcomes that we hardly dare to imagine the alternatives that may arise.  Why should we be so surprised when human beings fail to live up to our worst expectations?

Once again, Jacques Doillon performs a small miracle with a derisory budget and delivers an engaging film drama whose apparent surface simplicity is belied by the rich complexity of its characterisation and the issues it tackles.  Not only does the film offer a compelling story with a raw naturalistic edge, it also effectively drives home some important messages, namely that no one is beyond redemption and that social ills are more likely to be cured by compassion than by mindless finger-pointing antagonism.  If Costa, a seemingly morally vacuous live-for-the-moment thug,  symbolises the deep-seated failings in society and Cyril, the cop who allows himself to be beaten up with his own baton, depicts a well-intended but ineffective authoritarian solution, then Camille represents the one hope for a better future - the benign mediator that brings about reconciliation instead of brandishing futile condemnations that can only exacerbate the situation.   At a time of increasing social unease, Le Premier venu is an appeal for understanding that we would do well to heed.

Film Synopsis

Bored with her predictable bourgeois existence, 20-something Camille makes up her mind to fall in love with the next eligible young man she comes across.  Unfortunately for her, that young man happens to be Costa, a hot-headed and generally mixed up delinquent whose idea of a romantic entanglement does not extend much beyond a one night stand.  Determined not to let Costa walk out of her life, Camille follows him to his hometown, a fishing port in northern France.  Here she learns that Costa has an ex-partner and a young daughter he is unable to visit.  She also meets Cyril, a friend of Costa's who, to her surprise, is a cop.  Cyril takes an immediate liking to Camille but the latter cannot overcome her strange fascination for Costa.  She is certain that this violent, disaffected young man needs her, and for more than he will ever admit...