INTERVIEW
Guest of Europe 1, Sunday, Ladj Ly, director of the film Les Miserables , which received the grand prize of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival, did not talk about his feature film, which will be released on 20 November. At the microphone of Patrick Cohen, he also invites women and men politicians to find solutions for the inhabitants of the French suburbs.
Between documentary, thriller and drama, Les Misérables tells the life of a city of Seine-Saint-Denis, Montfermeil, where Ladj Ly grew up and lives for thirty years. The director looks at both the daily life of police officers of the BAC (Anti-Crime Brigade) but also on that of the inhabitants.
"It's not an anti-police film"
"It's not an anti-police film, but it's all about misery," says Ladj Ly, who says the miserable are "locals and policemen". "I put myself in the place of these police officers who work in difficult conditions, who have very low wages and who, for most of them live in housing estates," he explains.
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In this film entirely inspired by real events, the director traces in particular a police burr, when a young handcuffed was beaten by police. "I started filming [policemen] until the day I filmed that police smear I posted on the Internet, and after that blunder, there was an investigation and the police officers were sentenced," recalls Ladj Ly.
The director wants to restore truths on the suburbs. "There is a huge gap between what is being said [about the suburbs, ed ] and the reality on the ground," said Ladj Ly, who sought in this film "to tell how things are going interior "without" taking sides and judging the characters ".
A DVD sent to Emmanuel Macron
Based on these observations, Ladj Ly wants to challenge women and men politicians on the misery of the suburbs. "I believe that politicians are primarily responsible for this situation, which they have left to rot for thirty years because of unemployment, poverty, isolation and police violence," he denounces. "It's been more than twenty years that people claim rights, they say they are abandoned and they are not heard."
Ladj Ly invites political leaders to see the film "because it is an important film, which is above all patriotic, which speaks of France". "All these kids that we see in the film, they are primarily French," said Ladj Ly, who says he sent a DVD to Emmanuel Macron, without receiving an answer, for now.
The director thinks that the action of politicians is essential to solve the problems in the suburbs. "Despite all the difficulties and all the violence, there is still hope," he says. "Just having a real political will to move the lines, hope can come from our policies, so hear us!"