For 90 hot minutes, the entire nation is united. It is the World Cup final in football and the diverse folk sea party at the foot of the Arc de Triomphe. It's Marseljäsen, Trikoloren and Mbappé. A pervasive Vi-feeling. But the hangover causes the fragile facade of unity to crack. Outside of the utopian incubator of the sport, those who previously celebrated together are now strangers to each other again.
French director Ladj Ly was so successful with his short film Les Misérables that he decided to make a feature film - which in turn became even more acclaimed. A global festival tour for this his debut in the long format is topped by the Jury Prize in Cannes, and no one would be surprised if it norparks an Oscar in February.
But it is also a specially loaded movie that starts from an aged classic to tell about the urgent present. Victor Hugo's old kiosk squirrel has received so many adaptations, not least on the cinema screen, that at least the undersigned felt quite measured before the press screening - but this turned out to be something completely different.
Well, some connections are made to Hugo's work, not least that the film takes place in the same suburb of Paris, an area that, as then, is exposed and poor - which is also commented on by some of the cast: "Here nothing has changed!" . But otherwise, Ladj Lys's film stands firm on its own legs.
Unlike many other well-created dramas from the suburb, we do not primarily follow the residents here, but the police, those who, just as we in the audience, are from the outside.
Policeman Ruiz comes from a service outside the country and is placed in a patrol that has long worked in the harsh environment. The men are hated by most people in the neighborhood for their brutality and their tendency to push the law, which first shocks Ruiz. He is the newcomer who wants to play by the rules. He is our representative on the canvas, he who asks our questions.
Abuse of power and corruption causes bubbles to dissolve in the suburb, and when a little guy is accidentally shot by one of the police, it finally boils over, and hell breaks out.
Think John Carpenters The escape from New York meets the French resort-making-riot-drama As we fall.
Thus, pulsating forward movement with hard-hitting social presence - which is never even close to picking up any placard.
This is perhaps because the filmmaker himself is from the district. He tells about what he has seen and knows. Where an accomplished filmmaker can get lost in his own pathos in a narrative way, Ladj Ly creates credible and locally-based drama thrillers where there are idiots and gangsters in every camp.
Ladj Ly also has control over the prevailing hierarchies, the unofficial structures of power, which make life difficult for everyone involved. The mayor is a really cool black man in a football jersey with the title Le Maire on his back, he hangs with and ignores his poles as if he were a gang leader with unlimited power. In another corner of the area there is the barbecue bar where the area's prophetlike moral bosses are housed, and in another ring corner stands the circus-powered and armed Roma - and then the police, who have the weapon's but not the soul's power.
In other words, Les Misérables is a movie that is here and now, which slides smoothly into the current Swedish contemporary with the debate about dual societies, about violence and gang formation in the suburb. No, Ladj Ly - fortunately - does not have any sensible advice on how to solve the problem, but still suggests that it would not be so stupid if you could meet each other with respect.
Thus a nervous nail-biter for social commentary that engages both pathos and the reptile brain. Not bad.