“Corsica, you have to love it”
After The girl with the bracelet, director Stéphane Demoustier brilliantly continues his exploration of the legal world. In Village, is inspired by a news story and features Melissa (Hafsia Herzi), an expert prison guard from Fleury-Mérogis. Taking advantage of the island bonus, she arrives in Corsica with her two young children and her husband Djibril (Moussa Mansaly), awaiting professional retraining.
The director, met at Angoulême Francophone Film Festival, he turned to former lawyer Pascal Garbarini, who had played a role in his previous film. It was his natural gateway to continentals, permitting Accurately decipher the codes of delinquents, criminals and other Corsican inmates “. Because these are precisely the codes at play Village and how to integrate or even respect them.
Thus the codes of Corsican life and the environmental racism that the young mixed couple finds themselves dealing with. Not to mention open prison codes, which allow inmates to move freely during the day. But Melissa is not intimidated and stands tall in representing her position. While ensuring mutual respect with prisonerskeeps the distance as close as possible.
An infernal spiral
But it is this particular situation and his reunion with Saveriu (Louis Memmi), known in Fleury, that will make him gradually tilt it out of the frame. In some dialogues the intensity of the situations and emotions that the young woman experiences is shared with the empathetic spectator. She feels the sneaky grip she will fall into, against her will. Trust, attention, small services – everything falls into place the implacable manipulation of the gift that creates the debt.
Hafsia Herzi takes up the challenge in an extraordinary way this woman torn between her duty, her silence and her humanity. Especially because the director offers himself Village a subtle inversion of gender codes. She is truly a strong young woman in a world of macho men confident in their powers, like Anto (Henri-Noël Tabary). A mother whom the inmates, like Joseph Marchetti (Cédric Appietto), affectionately call Ibiza, bringing her back to a maternal mission.
She is this colleague within a depersonalized prison administration, under the orders of a director (Florence Loiret Caille) who does not compromise with procedures. A woman who fights for her skin and for her family, protecting her wounded husband with her male dignity. The film tells without judgement the power of the clans, violence, the temporality of detention, the settling of scores and the word given which is impossible to take back.
Village it is also a powerful film about gaze and point of view. Not just those of Melissa, who evolves under Saveriu’s gaze. But also those of the commissioner (Michel Fau), aided by the brigadier (Pablo Pauly). Because the director had the other great idea of conducting in parallel two dramaturgy.
“We forget no one and no one forgets us”
In fact, a mirror is added to the heroine’s subjective point of view exciting police investigation goal. “ Multiplying the angles without making things clearer, but in a dynamic and pleasant way for the viewer », the camera naturally alternates from one to the other. The pieces of the puzzle fit together, until the story cleverly comes together.
Hafsia Herzi and Michel Fau stand out for their truth. And the director achieves his goals of counter-employment of their usual roles. The actress, fully adult ”, is the opposite of the roles of fragile young women. And Stéphane Demoustier asked Michel Fau “ to stay away from his crazy stuff, be as righteous as possible and do nothing, like Bourvil in The Red Circle “. Thanks to an original staging and a tense story, Village turns out to be a fascinating film about how a young woman dares to take her place in the world of men.
Village by Stéphane Demoustier, in theaters from April 17, 2024. Above is the trailer. Find all our trailers here.
Source: Cine Serie
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