Un Français (2015)
Directed by Diastème

Film Review

At the time of its first release in 2015, Un Français was a virtual one off - a film made in France that confronts head-on a theme which, for some reason, hardly any French filmmaker appears willing to deal with in anything other than an off-hand, tangential or humorous vein, namely racial hatred.  Of course, the irony is that xenophobia (of the ugliest kind) is now endemic in French society, no doubt fuelled by concerns over mass immigration and the country's parlous economic state following the financial crisis of 2008.  It is the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about and whilst no one talks about it support for France's far right political parties continues to mushroom.  Diastème's uncompromising film about a Neo-Nazi's brutal redemption smashes its way through all this gutless complacency like a bulldozer ram-raiding a posh Parisian department store.  If, in doing so, it smashes to bits the one taboo that has no right to be it will have done France no end of good.

It is exactly twenty years since Mathieu Kassovitz's La Haine first blazed its way across cinemas in France, showing life as it was in the 'quartiers sensibles' (deprived neighbours) of the country's mixed race ghettos.  It was a film that created a stir because it presented a vision of France that people were unwilling to accept or just didn't care to see, and Diastème's film deserves to have a similar impact, even if it lacks the artistry and coherence of Kassovitz's grim urban masterpiece.  The film spans thirty years in the life of an ordinary man living on the margins who starts out as a ferocious Neo-Nazi but ends up rejecting racism as fiercely as he first embraced it.  In parallel, we see the growth of the Front National from a fringe party in the early 1980s to the major force it is today as France's third largest political party, its popularity continuing to grow under the polished stewardship of the über-charismatic Marine Le Pen.  Anyone harbouring under the illusion that the Far Right could never assume the reins of power in France should recall the 2002 presidential election, when Jean-Marie Le Pen saw off the socialist candidate and went head-to-head with Jacques Chirac in the final ballot.
 
For his second feature (after the comparatively mundane comedy-drama Le Bruit des gens autour (2008)), Diastème takes his inspiration from a hard-hitting British television play of the 1980s, Alan Clarke's Made in Britain (1983). Tim Roth's portrayal of a skinhead in this play strongly influenced those of the Neo-Nazi characters in Diastème's film, in particular the central protagonist played with astonishing conviction by Alban Lenoir.  Throughout the film, Lenoir's character Marco is in a permanent state of revolt - first against the human filth (as he sees it) that are polluting his fair and pleasant land (if we take the French national anthem literally, it is the duty of every French citizen to water his country's fields with the impure blood of outsiders); then against the racial hatred that he has come to despise.

The rage first manifests itself in outbursts of horrifying ultra-violence which take up much of the first third of the film and make it an extremely uncomfortable viewing experience.  The film becomes more interesting and slightly more digestible when, prompted by a few chance events, the fury turns inwards and Marco suddenly wakes up to the folly of his blind racism.  It is an implausible transformation, which is not helped by a jumpy narrative marred by overuse of ellipsis and the odd contrivance, but Lenoir's total immersion performance is utterly convincing, providing not just a harrowing study in one man's spiritual awakening but also a metaphor for what must happen in France if it is to avoid either a complete social breakdown or the nightmarish prospect of a Far Right government - a total rejection of the racial intolerance that is polluting just about every aspect of French life.

Un Français does not dwell on the reasons for the central character's loathing of blacks, browns and gays.  It is presented as a given, the inevitable result of his miserable upbringing in a slum district of the French capital.  Perhaps this is a flaw in the film, perhaps it is intended to suggest that racism has no rational basis.  What matters is that Marco comes to realise that racial hatred is fundamentally wrong and has sufficient moral fibre to take it on and expunge it from his system, like a body organ rejecting a deadly virus.  It proves to be a depressingly lonely personal crusade, as Marco's friends show no such signs of wanting to change their ways and his wife is a die-hard xenophobe who has nothing but contempt for her partner's change of faith.  In this multicultural era, it's far easier to be an Arab-hating, gay-bashing thug than a decent human being capable of accepting the differences of others.  This is the dismal message that Diastème's revelatory film leaves us with, although in it's main character's redemption it offers more than a glimmer of hope.

Film Synopsis

Along with his skinhead cohorts Braguette, Grand-Guy and Marvin, Marco likes nothing better than to beat up Arabs and put up posters supporting the Far Right.  Then, without him knowing why, his intense loathing for 'the other' suddenly leaves him.  For the first time, he is repelled by the violence his Neo-Nazi friends dish out on the streets of Paris, hurting and maiming people just because their skin is of a different colour.  How can he rid himself of the violence, anger and stupidity that he has within himself?  Marco's slow and arduous process of becoming a decent human being has only just begun...