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Monday, November 21, 2011

La Havre

Writes Roger Ebert:

"Le Havre" is set much farther south, in the French port city where many of the cargoes are human: illegal immigrants arriving from Africa. The police find a container filled with them, and a young boy slips under their arms and runs away. This is Idrissa (Blondin Miguel), from Gabon, solemn, shy, appealing. The cops announce a manhunt. The film's hero, Marcel Marx (Andre Wilms), is fishing near a pier and sees the boy standing waist-deep in the water, hiding, and mutely appealing to him. He returns, leaves out some food and finds the food gone the next day. And so, with no plan in mind, Marcel becomes in charge of protecting the boy from arrest.

The movie's other characters are all proletarians from a working-class neighborhood, and in Kaurismaki's somewhat sentimental view, therefore in sympathy with the little underdog and not with the police. We meet Marcel's wife, Arletty (Kati Outinen, long the director's favorite actress), who joins her husband in his scheme. Their dog, Laika, is also a great help. Marcel, probably in his 50s, is a hard-working shoeshine man who knows everyone, including a snoop, a woman grocer (Francois Monnie); a fellow Vietnamese shoeshiner, Inspector Monet (Jean-Pierre Darroussin), and a local rock singer named Little Bob (Roberto Piazza), whose act is unlike any you have ever seen.

Read the complete Review Here.

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