The best French movies of 2019, maybe none

Les Misérables

The film recommended by my cousin today, I think it is the best French film of 2019 (no one).

When the film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last year , it was a blockbuster and won the Jury Prize . After that, he swept through the major European film awards, and successively won the best debut of the 32nd European Film Awards and the best film of the 45th French Film Caesars Awards.

In the end, it was rated as " Top Ten Movies of the Year " by the well-known film magazine "Movie Manual" .

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Such a burst of word-of-mouth makes it hard to believe that it is still a new director's debut ——

"Les Miserables"

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The 31-year-old black director of the film is Raj Lee ’s feature film debut.

The film was adapted from a short film of the same name made by the director before. The short film was only 16 minutes long and was nominated for the Best Short Film at the Caesars Award.

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Director Raj Lee expanded and changed this short film and brought the original crew to create this feature film debut.

The film has a different impression from ordinary French literary films——

There are no romantic and poetic plot lines, and no gorgeous and exquisite scenes. Instead, it is full of various violent conflicts and bloodshed.

The overall style is realistic and cold, like watching a fierce gang crime movie, the adrenaline is tight throughout.

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01

The story of the film takes place in the Seine-Saint-Denis department, also known as the 93 department , in the northern suburbs of Paris .

This is where the director Raj Lee grew up, and it is also where the great writer Hugo wrote "Les Miserables".

At the same time, because of the settlement of immigrants and social problems such as various religions and ethnic antagonisms, crime and violence are proliferated here.

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Over time, it has gradually become a local three-regardless zone .

The movie revolves around a violent conflict that took place here, and the story only took place in just two days.

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The director used the vigorous lens language to restore--

The cruel truth about how this violence escalated and finally got out of control.

The story from the male host, Stephen , became a local anti-crime special forces policemen 's start.

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Stephen, who had just arrived, came to this unfamiliar area and was assigned to a three-person team responsible for patrolling.

There are two other colleagues in the team:

The first is Captain Chris .

The old fritters in the police force are also local snakes.

He has been responsible for maintaining law and order in this area for many years, doing whatever he wants in his jurisdiction, and often abusing law enforcement powers.

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Followed by the black police officer Vada .

Although he does not have the blatant violence of Chris, he is also very arrogant.

Although he grew up in this area, Vada looks down on the local black immigrants who have the same color race.

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This can be seen from the various uncivilized law enforcement behaviors during the patrols led by the two.

Chris was not only full of swear words, but also targeted the local black community and even told the newcomer Stephen:

These people carry various viruses on their bodies, and they must wear gloves when performing duties against them.

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In Chris's eyes, these African immigrants are lowly livestock, which can be bullied and insulted at will.

On the way he was patrolling, he saw several immigrant female students, and in the name of drug investigation, he molested the girls in various ways.

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Someone took the cell phone and wanted to take a video as evidence. Chris directly smashed the cell phone and threatened him with various threats.

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At this time, Vada turned a blind eye to this, as if he was used to it, just sitting in the car and watching jokes.

Stephen was dissatisfied with what the two did, but because he was a rookie after all, he couldn't directly oppose the stop.

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0 2

During the next patrol, they encountered a tricky thing.

A circus run by a local Gypsy lost a lion cub, which he believed was stolen by someone from the black community.

So the Gypsies came to the door with a large group of people and asked the black community to hand over the thieves.

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The leader of the black community is a gangster called the mayor , who is responsible for collecting protection fees and maintaining law and order in the local area.

Seeing the arrogant questioning arrogance of the Gypsies, the black gang here is not convinced at all.

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Just when the two sides were about to evolve into a large-scale battle, the captain Chris rushed to the scene.

In order to calm the anger between the two parties, Chris ordered the mayor to let his men quickly find the whereabouts of the lost little lion.

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Soon after investigation, they learned that a child named Isa stole the lion cub.

It was summer vacation, and a group of bear kids who didn't go to school got together and stalked their dogs lawlessly all day long.

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Chris saw that the whereabouts of the thief had been found, and was about to seize Issa and ask him guilty.

But when Isa was caught, the group of black children who were always okay to make troubles began to besiege the three of Chriss collectively.

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In the chaos, an accident happened suddenly!

Black police officer Vada shot Issa with a gun. Although it was a rubber bullet, Issa was severely injured and fainted because it was in the middle of the face.

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Stephen was shocked when he saw this and wanted to take the child to the hospital for treatment.

Unexpectedly, all of this was captured by another little boy who was operating a drone nearby .

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Chris panicked now--

He is more worried about his actions being exposed than hurting people.

Because once things are exposed, you are likely to lose your job.

So he started to take the injured Issa around and search for the kid who controlled the drone.

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03

The following story began to gradually lose control.

The black child who controlled the drone, in order to avoid Chris's search, found the local religious leader Sara .

Muslims , represented by Sarah , are another black group in the area. They have long been dissatisfied with the actions of the police.

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When Chris came to the door, Sarah didn't take it seriously.

When his authority was challenged, Chris was so angry that he drew his gun and threatened, roaring and telling Sara:

Labor and capital are law!

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So far, clashes between the police and the local residents were on the verge of breaking out.

Fortunately, at this time teammate Stephen stepped forward. He offered to negotiate with Sara and sincerely expressed his attitude:

The police have no intention of starting a war with black gangs represented by Sarah, and intensifying conflicts will only cause innocent casualties.

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After some communication, Sara finally agreed to give in.

After getting the video, the three of Chris took the injured Issa and the little lion to explain to the Gypsies.

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Stephen thought that things could finally calm down, but he didn't expect that the Gypsies were unwilling to bypass Issa easily.

He directly grabbed Issa's neck and threw him into the lion cage, all kinds of threats, scared the little boy to pee his pants.

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After coming out, Chris continued to force Issa to admit his mistakes and threatened him not to tell the truth about his injuries.

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This series of atrocities caused Issa's inner anger and hatred to continue to escalate.

The adult policemen at this time can't even imagine--

The anger in this young man's heart burned out, how terrible it would be.

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Early the next morning, the trio of Chris went on police patrols as usual.

But on the road, they encountered a group of black teenagers provoking them and throwing fireworks at the police car.

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Chris was enraged and planned to teach the children, so he led the team to a residential building.

Unexpectedly, this group of black children had been prepared.

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They used the set up roadblocks and kept throwing firecrackers to trap the three protagonists at the corner of the corridor.

Chris wanted to rush, but was smashed in the head on the spot.

Chris called the mayor to bring someone to support him, but he didn't expect--

The teenagers can't even fight against the gangsters.

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They made it clear that they wanted to put these three policemen to death.

Seeing that Chris and Vada were injured one after another, Stephen was forced to reluctantly, intending to rush into the corridor with a gun.

As a result, among those black teenagers, he saw the leader, Issa with hatred on his face.

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He was holding a ignited Molotov cocktail and was about to give the police the final blow.

The movie was finally fixed in the scene of Isa and Stephen confronting each other, and came to an abrupt end in great anxiety and suspense.

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04

"Les Miserables" is a movie with strong indignation and personal complaints from the director .

The director led the audience to witness the contradictions and conflicts in French society in depth through a conflict between police and civilians caused by a theft. Such as: the gap between the rich and the poor , racial discrimination , violent law enforcement and other social issues.

These problems have been ignored for a long time in immigrant communities like the 93 provinces, and eventually led to conflicts that got out of control and became out of control.

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On the other hand, the film is in a sense similar to last year's DC "Joker" .

The core of the two movies is actually to show-

An allegory of evil in modern society.

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In the film, the police, who were originally law enforcement officers, not only abused lynching by violent law enforcement, but also colluded with gangs.

However, the local gang forces are busy in intrigue to seize the territory, coupled with religious and ethnic conflicts, causing constant disputes.

In this chaotic order, the teenagers who have lived here since childhood have also learned the survival philosophy of using violence to control violence .

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When the young Issa in the film led a team to fight against the adults, it seemed to be a replica of Gotham's Joker.

So far-

Violence has become a vicious circle.

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The title of the film is taken from the novel of the same name by the writer Hugo, and the end of the film directly quotes a sentence from the novel:

There are no bad crops and no bad people in the world, only bad crop people.

Although Hugo's novel was written 150 years ago, all the tragedies and sins described in the book are still happening today.

And this is precisely where the biggest complaint is in the whole film——

There are no evil people in this world, but some are just the nourishment of evil.

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