When Julien Poupard's camera flies out of the sky into the apartment complex, it is a place between becoming and decaying. In the background there is hammering and tinkering on the soundtrack. You work on buildings, roads or what exactly? Meanwhile, the residents fight in vain for prospects and social advancement. You are in a constant state of transition, waiting for letters and approvals from the authorities – which either don't come or are refused. At the same time you are stuck in decline. At the beginning of the film, men painfully heaved a coffin down the narrow stairs in the apartment block. The elevator hasn't worked for a long time. The forgotten and abandoned live here.
After the outstanding “The Furious – Les Misérables” “The Undesirables – Les Indésirables“ another feature film by French director Ladj Ly about the harsh reality in the French banlieues. Several recent films have dealt with this topic and the spaces that are often referred to and stigmatized as “social hotspots”. These include “Rodeo”, “Spiders – Your Bite Is Death” and “Athena”, whose script Ly was involved in.
In order to improve conditions in her district for everyone, Haby (Anta Diaw) is toying with the idea of running for mayor herself.
These are all works about the conflicts and problems of people in the poor suburbs, about their conflicts with each other, but also with the authorities and the state. Films that at the same time always try to take a new look at crime and resistance gestures and paint a picture of Europe in which pent-up frustration and anti-poor politics cause fundamental shocks – to the point of escalation.
“The Unwanted” shows a striking, literal shock in the first few minutes. An old house in the settlement is blown up. When the mayor presses the trigger and a cloud of dust rushes towards the surrounding crowd, the politician's heart suddenly stops. The people who live in the Paris suburb long for better living conditions and living conditions, including young Haby (Anta Diaw). But other goals have long been pursued in politics. The reactionary doctor Pierre Forges (Alexis Manenti) comes to power as the new mayor and does everything he can to drive the migrants out of the area…
Political cynicism in its purest form
“The Undesirables” is a rousing, powerful film because it relentlessly demonstrates the effects and rhetoric of those policies. Because you succumb to your own racist resentments, fears and insecurities, you rule with social coldness and ultimately have the audacity to sell restrictions and discrimination as protection and care. When the new mayor imposes curfews and bans on gatherings on young people and you consider what weak arguments you can use to deprive the already destitute of their last means of existence – then this film is difficult to endure in its cruelty.
Above all, Ladj Ly succeeds in criticizing power relations, which are of course constantly on the agenda not only in France, but also in Germany. Here as there, human dignity is only worth as much as it is suitable for wage work and the economy. Here as there, integration is demanded, while one is involved in ensuring that this integration fails. Those who have nothing anyway and face numerous hurdles, for example to even be able to start a career, are transformed into scapegoats and an available, anonymous mass, into a disruptive factor. Living conditions will not be improved if this improvement is left as a task solely in tied hands.
Apocalyptic scenes in the Paris suburbs
“The Unwanted” repeatedly plays through such cycles, classisms and setbacks and brings them to a head. This socially realistic film further complicates the confrontations and enmities by, for example, introducing a character named Roger (Steve Tientcheu). The politician himself has migrant roots, but has managed to rise, strives for solidarity and still looks down on others from the migrant community. At the same time, he becomes their own enemy, a traitor.
“The Unwanted” naturally breaks down very complex social contexts and phenomena into a manageable constellation of characters. And he doesn't care much about developing them further, letting the characters travel long distances. For him it is more about reflecting the messy situation in all its hopelessness. He takes sides with the marginalized, silenced voices. This is committed filmmaking – with a clear, unambiguous attitude. It masters the game of emotions with its left hand, but for understandable reasons: it ignites justified anger, pity, and conveys insights. It makes social conditions in the cinema both understandable and unbearable and thus stands in the way of the cynicism of prevailing discourses.
Pierre Forges (Alexis Manenti) dreams of a clean suburb – and turns the lives of many of his citizens into a nightmare.
Ladj Ly does not simply repeat the structure of “The Furious”. Where this work headed even more stringently towards an escalation that erupted in pure excess and chaos in the final act, “The Unwanted” takes a different approach. You can describe this as a meandering up and down. But it only detracts marginally from the film in direct comparison. This time, Ly unleashes the greatest chaos in the middle section. When he stages the forced eviction of a block of flats, these are once again apocalyptic, almost incomprehensible scenes in which the displaced people throw their last belongings out of the windows before they all end up on the street. In such moments, the many close-ups of faces give way to precise drives and flights that convey a broad picture of the hustle and bustle, fear and doom and gloom.
“The Unwanted” ultimately tells of an attempt at revolt, but by what means? While the protagonist Haby aspires to go into politics and run for mayor, it soon becomes clear that this path is a hopeless undertaking. How much time is there for such a plan if there is simply a lack of resources and if the reactionary privileged ones are quicker and create facts? That means mercilessly depriving people of shelter. So new crime is sparked. Hatred and violence break out, leading to another highly intense sequence in the film's finale that cannot offer any solutions or satisfaction in the cinema. Above all, this powerful film resonates with its eerie final image, which translates the devastating political violence of an unjust system into a symbolic visual wound and dark void on the screen.
Conclusion: Ladj Ly is one of the most exciting politically committed filmmakers of today. After “The Angry Ones”, he masters “The Unwanted Ones”, another shocking, angry and emotionally strong banlieue drama that concerns not only France, but the entire world.