For the Les Misérables trailer, click here.
Disney’s 1994 The Lion King is popularly heralded as the epitome
of Shakespeare movies. Largely based on Hamlet, the film was a
progenitor of a new strain of Shakespeare films that finally did away with
copying the aesthetics of theatre plays. Instead of replicating already
established formulas, they created filmic innovation by retelling the message of
the original works. Therefore, as is commonly held, movies like The Lion
King, Shakespeare in Love, or Renaissance Man are not
Shakespeare movies in the sense that they stage old characters with old
paradigms, but they recapitulate evergreen stories and let them play out in new
settings, thus creating original works.
One such similar movie is Ladj Ly’s 2019 Les Misérables. Belonging
to a long list of (re)interpretations of Victor Hugo’s original novel of the
same name, the film quickly overtakes the original and focuses on reinventing
the schematics laid by Hugo and presents an old fable in a contemporary
socio-political milieu. As such, this time around, instead of witnessing Hugh
Jackman in the role of a galley slave haunted by a morally blind legal system,
singing of misery and hardship, we witness a different telling of injustice.
This one is more overt, and more urban. On average days, in average scenarios Les
Misérables showcases the very commonplace abuse that makes the life of the
film’s characters a living hell in the French projects. But what force or group
could be so malevolent as to torture the innocent? Well, Jean-Paul Sartre would
have answered “other people,” but the idea that became the epilogue of the film
is not radically different absurdist thought. In Victor Hugo’s words: “Remember
this, my friends: there are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are
only bad cultivators.” Designating the cultivators as the culprits, Hugo sheds
light on an interesting paradox: society is built of individuals, but the
responsibility for overall wellbeing is not vested in any of them. This feeling
of absent responsibility shepherds people into a bystander status wherein they
lose their ability to judge the weight of their actions. Plainly speaking, one
is unaccountable for their wrongdoings since they are also victims themselves. The
shadow cast by this paradox looms over the whole film, as the characters must
make essentially ethically involved decisions. Therefore, the movie is centred
around the deeds of the characters, and this allows them to develop nuanced
personalities. All of them must play the ‘bad guy’ – some more often than
others – then the viewer is allowed to make up their own mind based on what
they saw.
The first such instance plays out right at the beginning when we first
follow the movie’s protagonist, Stéphane Ruiz’s indoctrination into the police
force. Freshly arriving from the colonies, he is immediately thrown in deep
water revealing the hypermasculine workings of the Parisian Anti-Crime Brigade.
The remarkably stern-looking female police commissioner makes it known to all,
that a strong constitution and assertive behaviour is a must for the job. Stéphane’s
unit is lead by Chris, a self-styled cowboy whose actions speak for themselves,
the very first of which takes place when he attempts to conduct a ‘stop and
frisk’ on some Parisian girls of colour, clearly a sexually motivated move. The
trio is completed by Gwanda, a young and somewhat inexperienced youth of
colour, he is mostly tasked with keeping up a good rapport with the locals. Stéphane
finds himself in disagreement with the others from the get-go. As a freshly
divorced father to a little girl, he is clearly emasculated and as a foreigner
he observes the events more objectively, therefore he sympathises most with the
locals.
The residents of the projects also have trouble with their major league
players, even though they are mostly (self)governed by The Muslim Brotherhood’s
two figureheads. Salah is an ex-convict who runs a halal kebab place, his
agenda is based on a conviction to bring spirituality back to the everydays and
maintain a life that is more agreeable to Muslim faith. He is mostly left alone
as he keeps the streets drug-free and the children in order. On the other hand,
his counterpart, The Mayor is a very secular man. He pursues a live and let
live policy, all the while he makes his fortune through shady deals. Somewhat
similarly, the local women also lead a life of their own. Being ejected from
local politics, they are shown to be left to their own devices, mostly handing
out interest-free loans to community members. The last faction is made up by
the gypsy mob, who run a little travelling circus. Their leader Zorro is an
aggressive and fearless man who has little patience for grand strategy and will
involve himself only in affairs that directly affect him. Last but perhaps most
important is the community of the local children. Just out of school, they
often receive the short end of the stick both from The Brotherhood and the
police. Their most prominent member, Issa even has to suffer the heavy-handed punishment
from Zorro, for stealing his pet lion cub.
It is in this political Mexican standoff where the viewer must make up
their mind about the characters. Vouching for any of them is futile since they
all disobey moral prescriptions in one way or another. Instead, attention
should be paid to the power-structures that govern the events behind the screens.
These quickly reveal that the diaspora of locals has indeed been wrongly
cultivated. They are forced into a Western community where gender equality is paramount,
and people lead a very secular life. Furthermore, the French system seems to be
based on two earners and offers little chance of breakout for Muslim immigrants
since in many denominations women are forbidden to work. The police’s brutal
tactics also leave a mark on their own reputation. The locals routinely refuse
to cooperate, which leads to more police violence as the two sides clash in a
series of self-exacerbating altercations. The movie impeccably portrays that at
the heart of the problem are not the people themselves but the powers that pit
them against each other; reinforcing the notion that criminals are made by
circumstance rather than an inherent characteristic. Thus, poses like religion,
authority, legality only matter insofar as the people executing the orders can
claim them as justification for their actions. This flawed system does not
offer peaceful multiculturalism or assimilation, but rather drives the cultures
apart through continuous conflicts. To make matters worse, these forces are
perpetuated by poverty, a lack of education, and an absence of prospects, thus
the most often victimised are the most vulnerable: the children. The film thus
captivates the viewer’s attention until the very end, where the conclusion of
the story takes a turn for the absurd. As Issa’s calvary ends, children are
shown to have formed a mob overnight and executed hits on the police units as
well as the Mayor’s office. While the sudden increase in agency for the
children is an homage to the 2005 riots in Paris, it may leave many viewers in
a state of disbelief. In a certain sense, the movie fails its own rhetoric and
presents the children not as helpless victims but as superheroes fighting for
independence, which shatters the illusion that society in large is responsible
and structures the youth’s image as accountable for their circumstances.
In conclusion, the film delivers a compelling argument up until the
very end, but the closing scenes of successful revenge appear a bit too farfetched
and will not garner all viewer’s favour. Similarly, many will find their
ethical stance predetermined before the end, which will leave viewers with less
impact; in other words, many will pledge sympathy for one of the characters
before the film culminates, denying the chance to form nuanced opinions.
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