Les Miserables – 8.2

Almost a masterpiece by French director Ladj Ly. The people and the setting are real and harrowing. Every moment is fraught with tension, but it all makes sense, as we live through the worst possible first day on the job for Special Crimes Unit newcomer Ruiz. The entire day is spent meeting the denizens of Montfermeil, a Parisian suburb home to African immigrants and similar residents of the lower depths, defusing crises, including one brought on by the cops. The interplay among the three policemen is brilliant: each is different but understandable, and how they get along is one of the film’s tensions, but only one. At the end of the day, there has been a resolution – at least enough to get along for another day – and the film slows to a meditative ending, with successive close-ups of each of the principals, home from the stress of the day. But the film doesn’t end! We are shown a sped-up second day in which all hell breaks loose. Instead of the realism of Day One, the movie devolves into an all-out bang-bang chase and shoot-out, like so many lesser films. The peace and understanding and amazement I felt at the close of day one was blown away by the pessimistic coda: there is no hope – a message I didn’t want or need and one I wasn’t sure was set up by what had come before. So, as I said, “almost a masterpiece.”