These three films all include the dual ideas of inter-ethnic disconnection and the desire for betterment (whether individual or communal). I was initially going to entitle it "migrants", but the first movie depicts people who definitely don't count as migrants. They're French; they were born in France; they've only ever lived in France. Their parents or grandparents or great-grandparents might have been migrants. But they're not. Any more than the Pakeha population in New Zealand or the Chinese population in Malaysia can be called migrants. The second two films feature more recent examples of people moving to find something better.

1.
Les Miserables
2019, Ladj Ly

The story is set in La Cite des Bosquets, one of the huge estates on the outskirts of Paris. This one is in Montfermeil (which, in the Victor Hugo novel from which the movie takes its name, is the location of the Thenardiers’ inn, where former convict Jean Valjean meets the orphan Cosette).

To some extent, this estate world is familiar -- from Engrenages, or from Anti-Disturbios. Deprived populations, used to facing discrimination and injustice; vicious cycles of mistrust and brutality; police officers displaying varying combinations of corruption, disillusionment, and fear; people trying to change things but struggling against inertia and the weight of history...

The difference here, however, is that this is the milieu where the film-maker himself (the son of a Malian immigrant) grew up. As he explains in an interview, this film tells some of the story of his life, and everything in it is based on things he has experienced. He brings a considerable sense of authenticity, then, coupled with a strong desire to offer a nuanced picture. These districts are powder-kegs, he says -- in some you have as many as 30 nationalities attempting to coexist -- and yet people manage to figure out the kinds of daily arrangements that make coexistence possible. Contrary to the media image, it's not all drugs and violence; rather, these areas on the periphery are also vibrant and energy-filled.

He elaborates: "I wanted the first 40 minutes of the film to be a quiet immersion in the neighborhood. I wanted to first bring the viewer into my universe, and only then, get into the action. But first, we walk around, it's a chronicle, we get to know the characters and the fabric of the neighborhood... I purged the film of cliches such as drugs and weapons. Even the music is more electro than rap. Even in the way of speaking, I wanted to avoid the cliches that films about the estates often draw on."

I'm not sure of the extent to which the ordinary joe-viewer would pick this up. Yes, we begin really positively, with all sectors of the community exuberantly celebrating a French soccer win. There's blue, white, and red everywhere. There's a real feeling of national unity. But after that, as we start to follow a patrol of three officers from the Anti-Crime Squad, the environment comes across to those of us who are not used to it as fissured and volatile, with an undisclosed menace never far from the surface.


Paris, 1988

The varying characters of the police trio offer useful lenses with which to view the problems. Chris (Alexis Manenti) is a racist bully; Gwada (Djebril Zonga) has grown up in the locality, and therefore knows its ways, but he is in an intrinsically difficult position, and his well-meaning attempts at conciliation don't stop him making a major mistake; and Stephane (Damien Bonnard) is the new guy, who is fresh in from the provinces, and unwilling to be too oppositional, but finding it hard to hide how appalled he is by Chris's modus operandi.

There are plenty of other characters who aren't that likeable either. The mayor is a bit of a tough guy, with rackets on the side and dubious relations with higher-ups; the Roma circus operatives have clearly been wronged by young Issa (Issa Perica), who has stolen their lion cub, but choose threats and violence as the solution; Issa's father is downright scary...

Still, Salah, the restaurant owner, despite his dubious past and his distrustful demeanour, is clearly aware of the interests of the community rather than just his own, and carries a definite moral authority. There is a street-savvy group of Muslim men who try to keep an eye on their youth. There is solidarity among neighbours. And there's Buzz (played by the director's son, Al-Hassan Ly), whose drone escapades can be classified as voyeuristic, but also offer a means of holding the police accountable. (Interesting -- we're so used to seeing the drone as an instrument of repression, whereas here, potentially at least, it's a force for justice.)

It's apparent really early on why accountability is a problem. Chris doesn't hesitate to overstep his authority, and flat-out harasses members of the community. Gwada panics in a threatening situation, and shoots Issa in the face with a flash-ball -- an incident recorded by Buzz's drone. Chris and Gwada go all-out to cover this up, instructing Issa to ascribe his wound to an accident that was "his own fault". They fail to prevent the cruel punishment meted out by the circus man, even though his lion cub has been returned.

What happened to the child Issa is horrendous. He ends up looking like an old man. It's unsurprising that there are calls for revenge, and the police team is ambushed and trapped. The ending is left open. We remain unsure as to whether Issa will launch the Molotov cocktail that will immolate the three officers, or whether he will be gunned down by the weapon Stephane is pointing at him -- or whether, miraculously, they will all see sense, and step back.

Given that Victor Hugo's Les Miserables portrays the death of Gavroche, who shares certain characteristics with Issa, you have to feel it's likely to be the middle scenario. But hey, no determinism... Stephane is the most reasonable of the three cops; maybe he'll find the right words.

The last thing we see is a quote from Hugo's novel: "Remember this, my friends: there are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad cultivators."

This is very much Ly's message: don't blame individuals (because there is right and wrong on every side); rather, blame the system, blame the powers-that-be who have left this situation to fester for 30/40 years.

The crocodile tears of President Macron, then, who was reportedly "shocked" by the state of affairs depicted in the movie, do not impress Ly: "How could he not have known the extent of the problems I show in the film? It’s not like it’s news. It’s been like this for ever." As of August 2020, when that article was written, Ly still lived in Montfermeil. Why? "Because it's my home! That's where I belong."



2.
A Bigger Splash
2015, Luca Guadagnino (who also made I Am Love)

The setting is the stunning Italian island of Pantelleria, which lies a little closer to Tunisia than to Sicily. Our rich and gorgeous protagonists mostly hang out in a beautiful villa, which comes complete with a languor-inducing swimming pool. It's up in the hills, and thus a long way from the harbour at which increasing numbers of migrants are being held.

We're introduced first to Marianne (Tilda Swinton) and Paul (Matthias Schoenaerts). She's a rock star recovering from throat surgery, and reduced to silence. He's a film-maker recovering from alcoholism. They're very happy, in a hot, dreamy sort of way. Then -- enter Trouble, in the shape of Harry (Ralph Fiennes) and Penelope (Dakota Johnson). He's a record producer, and not only a former lover of Marianne's but also the person who introduced Harry to her. Penelope is the daughter he only recently found he had. Harry is insufferable... A boisterous, boorish exhibitionist with a distinctly malicious streak, he really has no redeeming features. Spoiled and pouty Penelope is somewhat less annoying, but neither is she someone you would want to share your villa retreat with.

The film's strong point is its powerful recreation of the tension that constantly ratchets up among the four main characters. Harry gets back with Marianne; Paul succumbs (we assume) to the siren ways of Penelope. And Paul ends up having a fight with the ghastly Harry, and drowning him in the swimming pool...

Erik Lundegaard sums up quite well what I was feeling: "The problem? I got bored with the premise. It’s a Garden of Eden story where the snake is too obviously a snake. You watch and think, 'You know, you really should get rid of that snake,' and they don’t, and bad things happen, and who cares..."


Pools in Malaysia...

Forming a counterpoint to all this is the migrant crisis that is unfurling in the background. We get only snatches: a comment from a guest at the villa, the sound of the TV in the background, the explanations of the police at the station. But we learn that migrants are said to be hiding on the island; some have recently been rescued by a fishing boat, and taken to a reception centre; and -- on the same night that the odious Harry drowns in the glitzy swimming pool -- seven migrants died in the sea.

At the police station, where Paul and Marianne have been called for questioning, she suggests, without any direct accusation, that "anyone" could have come up to the house on the path behind the pool, and not been heard... "She's thinking of the refugees," someone says, helpfully.

Critics are divided as to whether this narrative thread works. This reviewer is unimpressed: "The migrant crisis is only touched upon when it could have made a fascinating counterweight to the goings on at the villa..." I must admit that was my feeling when the film ended.

Justin Chang, on the other hand, is positive about the "unexpected shift in perspective" that the final act brings. And David Ehrlich reminded me of an incident that I'd forgotten: "At the same time as things go south for Marianne and her houseguests, the news breaks that seven migrants have just drowned offshore -- naturally, it’s reduced to the sound of white noise of a local television broadcast. Later, one of the survivors accidentally knocks a ball over the fence of the police pen where he’s being held. Penny, walking by at the time, thoughtlessly tosses it back. By the time she steps inside, it’s all a distant memory. Out of sight, out of mind. The world only exists as far as she can feel it."

Whatever the merits of the film's treatment of Tunisian migrants, Pantelleria still attracts people searching for a better life, and still finds itself in the headlines.



3.
Complicity
2020, Kei Chikaura

Chen Liang (Yulai Lu) is a young Chinese man from Henan province, with modest means and a needy family. His dream was to go to Japan, work, make a lot of money, and go home to open his late father's car-repair workshop. But the wheels have already come off the wagon, and while he tells his ailing mother how well he's doing in Japan, he's actually trapped in the web woven by a group of compatriots, who force him to carry out illegal activities.

In one last desperate attempt to escape this vicious cycle, he buys fake ID (he's now Liu Wei) and a new phone, and follows up a chance offer of a job in a soba restaurant in Oishida. There, he works and lives with the owner, Hiroshi (Tatsuya Fuji), who is gruff but kind, and who teaches him the soba trade, which he finds he loves. Also on the scene is Hiroshi's daughter (Kio Matsumoto), who takes on a quasi-maternal role towards the young apprentice.

But it's hard to escape his old life. His former associates come looking for him, wanting him to join them on a job, or offer them accommodation. And eventually, his past catches up with him, and he's on the run.


Osaka, 2015

As happenstance would have it, this is the second Japanese-made movie about Chinese people that we've watched in recent weeks (the previous one was The Last Letter by Shunji Iwai).

This production looks "through the eyes of a young Chinese immigrant as imagined by a Japanese filmmaker", and I must admit that this cooption of an unfamiliar point of view bothered me to a certain extent. Chen Liang's Chinese family seemed a little too stylized: sick mother, overbearing grandma, a general naivete about life overseas... But Chikaura researched his story by interviewing illegal migrants in Japan, and his portrayal of Chen Liang's life in Japan is certainly kindly: "Emphasising how much they have in common rather than the various ways in which Chen Liang differs from the world around him, Chikaura paints a much more sympathetic portrait of a migrant worker than the one usually found in the media."

Hiroshi helps him to evade the police, and gives him money to help him on his way: "You be the one to choose your life," he tells Chen Liang, addressing him now by his real name. We don't know what the end of the story will be for the young migrant worker. We leave him on a driftwood beach, looking out to sea. But in a recorded conversation with his Japanese artist friend, now living in Beijing, he acknowledges that he is indeed Chen Liang.

Which gets him out of his double-life closet -- but what, after that, are his options?

Not good, according to this article, which describes the contradictions of Japan's immigration policy.

In all, this is a winsome, empathetic movie that makes you long to fix the stupidity of migration regulations around the world (and long, of course, to find some soba noodles to eat).