Abdellatif Kechiche's L'Esquive focuses on the less than glamorous lifestyles of the kids in the Parisian suburban 'banlieue'. Its low-budget, shaky hand-held gives the impression of realism, as does the ghetto-speak delivered by the young mostly non-professional actors, but I doubt that most impoverished, minority race Paris suburban youths consider rehearsing 18th century plays as their preferred outdoor leisure activity.
That might give some indication of just how heavy-handed L'Esquive is, a school production of Marivaux's 'Games of Love and Chance' being shoehorned in to draw parallels on how social divisions and prejudice are not just tolerated, but actively enforced by the society and the authorities to the extent that those repressed come to believe that they aren't deserving of anything more. The use of language meanwhile is used to compare and contrast those social divisions and attitudes, showing in the process that essentially, people are pretty much the same regardless. Just in case you don't get it though, a police squad swoops down at the kids at one point to make sure they know their place and don't get any ideas above their station.
It's a relevant subject and one of particular social significance at the time the film was made, leading the Césars to shower it with awards for tackling such edgy material. Any good social points the film has to make however are negated by its storytelling and film-making deficiencies. In addition to being heavy-handed, it's tedious in the extreme - a banal, badly-acted story of attraction between profoundly irritating ghetto kids bickering at the tops of their voices for what feels like an interminable two-hours.
That might give some indication of just how heavy-handed L'Esquive is, a school production of Marivaux's 'Games of Love and Chance' being shoehorned in to draw parallels on how social divisions and prejudice are not just tolerated, but actively enforced by the society and the authorities to the extent that those repressed come to believe that they aren't deserving of anything more. The use of language meanwhile is used to compare and contrast those social divisions and attitudes, showing in the process that essentially, people are pretty much the same regardless. Just in case you don't get it though, a police squad swoops down at the kids at one point to make sure they know their place and don't get any ideas above their station.
It's a relevant subject and one of particular social significance at the time the film was made, leading the Césars to shower it with awards for tackling such edgy material. Any good social points the film has to make however are negated by its storytelling and film-making deficiencies. In addition to being heavy-handed, it's tedious in the extreme - a banal, badly-acted story of attraction between profoundly irritating ghetto kids bickering at the tops of their voices for what feels like an interminable two-hours.