A pointed, slightly startling streak of subversion runs through Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret’s The Worst Ones, an ostensibly straightforward light social drama that’s nevertheless eager to periodically remind the viewer of its slier, subtler intentions. Precisely what those intentions amount to remains somewhat foggy by the movie’s end but that’s a substantial part of its appeal and a fitting piece in its puzzle. Akoka, Gueret and co-writer Elénore Gurrey, all making their feature debuts, are as invested in creating a modern neo-realist touchstone, imbued with overt, self-reflexive social commentary, as they are with commenting on the ethics of both the neo-realist style and its production methods.
Nimbly slipping between quasi-docufiction and scenes in a more traditional fictional style, with periodic stylistic signals to reinforce the artificiality of these sequences (diegetic music suddenly becoming non-diegetic soundtrack, unexpected focal shifts), The Worst Ones is both conceptually innovative and politically provocative. But, for all its subversive qualities, it’s also both formally and narratively simple. Gabriel (Johan Heldenbergh) is a Belgian filmmaker working in Boulogne-sur-Mer in the north of France. He’s cast his movie, a neo-realist drama about working-class youth in the city’s Picasso neighborhood, with non-actors from the local community; the rumor is that he’s specifically, intentionally cast “les pires,” the worst ones in his leading parts, referring not to their acting capabilities but to their reputation and social status. Though the details of each character’s movie-within-a-movie stories reflect their real lives, Akoka and Gueret are content to permit our appreciation of this fact to develop through examination of those real lives (albeit within this fictional movie), rather than belabor the minutiae of Gabriel’s admittedly trite storylines.
In broadening the scope of their ethical inquiries, Akoka and Gueret sagely overcome the potential for self-satisfied hectoring that, all the same, they wilfully allow Gabriel to exhibit. His naïvety as a wealthy white man mildly exploiting a working-class community for the purposes of art – indeed, not very good art, even less so meaningful art – may be a critique of his compatriots, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, or of Akoka and Gueret’s, Abdellatif Kechiche. But the nature of his pursuits isn’t exclusively the practice of those filmmakers, nor is it wholly without merit and good intent. His assistant, Judith (Esther Archambault), is engaged in discussion with a group of local women in one standout scene – they complain that the movie she’s making, in subject matter and production methods alike, reinforces their neighborhood’s reputation for poverty, delinquency and social ills, drawing the ire of local community organizations; Judith retorts that any other portrait of the area would be dishonest. Crucially, she shuts the debate down with a barbed quip that earns laughter from the whole group, including the woman to whom it’s directed – The Worst Ones isn’t out to preach, since it’s cut from the very same cloth as the movie’s it might’ve preached against and since Akoka and Gueret are keenly aware of this.
Consequently, no-one involved here gets away without some shades of ambiguity to their character, be they characters or real-world crew. Gabriel might be a pompous hack but he’s also earnest, generous and misunderstood by many in the neighborhood. The leads in his film, also the leads in this film, Lily (Mallory Wanecque) and Ryan (Timéo Mahaut), are troubled youngsters unjustly beaten down by societal forces beyond their control but they’re also far from saints – Lily is crass and judgmental, while Ryan is arrogant and uncommunicative. And Akoka and Gueret are smart, sensitive filmmakers using the material they’ve cut to sew into an impressive, quietly provocative work of art but they’re also not immune to the criticisms they raise herein. Like Gabriel, they’ve cast non-actors from the Picasso neighborhood to play these non-actors from the Picasso neighborhood and, like it or not, one cannot evade judgment just by acknowledging its validity.
These knots in the ethical, socio-political fabric of The Worst Ones are what give it its texture, giving its crisp images and sincere tone a gentle jolt of uncertainty that feels entirely apt. That the movie doesn’t answer the questions it raises, then, also feels apt, since part of its point appears to be that these questions simply can’t be answered by movies that raise them as an inherent component in their design. The ways in which Akoka and Gueret navigate such complex thematic territory must suffice to satisfy a viewer’s desire for dramatic depth and, to the filmmakers’ credit, this is a task they accomplish with aplomb.
Photo courtesy of Kino Lorber
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