In
the nearly two decades since his blistering debut La Haine, director Mathieu
Kassovitz
has probably become more famous for his acting role as the quirky love interest
of goofy, lovable stalker Audrey Tatou in Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Amélie than for films like head-scratching potboiler The
Crimson Rivers, his ropey
US debut Gothika or
the frankly stinking $70 million flop Babylon A.D. So it’s refreshing to see him return to form with Rebellion, his earnest, uncompromising account of a
little known and shameful episode in recent French colonial relations.
In 1988, with
French internal politics divided between the left and right over the
Presidential elections, a group of indigenous Kanak separatists attack and
seize a police station on the small French colony of New Caledonia in the South
Pacific, in the process killing three policeman and taking a further twenty-six
hostage.
Assigned to
resolve the incident by incumbent French President Francois Mitterand,
anti-terrorism expert Captain Phillipe Legorjus (Mathieu Kassovitz) and his team travel from Paris to the
island to track down the separatists, defuse the situation and secure the
release of the hostages through peaceful negotiations with separatist leader
Alphonse (Iabe Lapacas). However Legorjus finds his efforts
increasingly frustrated by the bullying military who harass and repress the
local populace, inflaming their anger.
As Legorjus
slowly gains the trust of the separatists and works to find a peaceful solution
to the crisis, back home the rivalry between the left-wing Mitterand and his
right-wing opponent Prime Minister Jacques Chirac intensifies. With public opinion swaying in favour
of Chirac who’s calling for a swift, brutal resolution, Legorjus finds himself
in a desperate race against time to avert the inevitable tragedy…
Taut, tense and
possibly his angriest, most satisfying film since La Haine, Kassovitz’s Rebellion is a searing indictment of French
politics, attitudes and society.
Based on the memoirs of the real Captain Legorjus, the film is something
of a labour of love for Kassovitz who worked for several years to win the trust
and consent of the families of the nineteen dead Kanaks killed in the
uprisingly. It’s also timely given
that New Caledonia is once again pushing for independence and will be the
subject of referendum next year.
Boldly opening
and closing with the bloody aftermath of the French raid on the separatists, a
shell-shocked Legorjus numbly walking through violent scenes of carnage as
French soldiers beat and summarily execute Kanak prisoners, Kassovitz’s film
pulls few punches, exposing the casual racism, bureaucracy, compromises,
game-playing and political expediency that will lead to bloodshed. Given that we know from the first shot
that events are going to end in tears, the focus of Rebellion instead becomes the morality of the
principals, particularly the honorable, increasingly frantic, Legorjus who
desperately tries to avert the tragedy he knows is coming.
While it’s
overlong and lacks subtlety, Kassovitz’s Rebellion is a powerful, intelligent political
drama that’s quietly furious.
David Watson
Directed by:
Written by:
Produced by:
Starring:
Mathieu Kassovitz, Iabe Lapacas,
Malik Zidi, Alexandre Steiger, Daniel Martin
and Christophe Rossignon
Genres:
Action, Drama, History
Language:
French
Runtime:
2 hours 15
minutes
Certificate:
15
UK Release Date:
Friday 19th
April 2013
Rating:
4/5
Originally published at http://www.filmjuice.com/rebellion-lordre-et-la-morale/
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