Institute History
Description
Set in midwinter Paris using a dreary palette of grays and earth tones, this poignant film of life on the street opens with the main character shoplifting a shirt for her gang. So begins Louise’s day, much like all the others: theft; hanging out in subway tunnels; aimless
wandering and continuous, fast-paced motion from nowhere to nowhere; banal conversation; and sex, but no sharing or tenderness. This time, however, Louise stops to give a coin to a drunk and crying bum. He has not seen his son, Gaby, in years, and she makes an impetuous resolution to reunite them. In front of Gaby’s school, Louise meets Rémi, a charming but homeless North African man, and the trio set off, chattering, flirting, and cutting up, to meet Louise’s gang in the tunnels.
What follows is a convincing depiction of life on (and under) the streets, interwoven with the threads of the slowly growing romance between Rémi and Louise, the steadily growing affection of Louise for Gaby, happy to be a truant and in such exciting and adventuresome company, and the conflict between Rémi and Louise’s steady boyfriend, the hard and ultimately cowardly Yaya. The plot climaxes with Louise’s arrest, then slowly unwinds to a magical finish as the protagonists reveal their true natures.
Elodie Bouchez, playing Louise, carries the film, with strong support from Roschdy Zem as Rémi and Antoine Du Merle as the lovable but ornery Gaby. The staccato, restless
cinematography perfectly captures the
characters’ frenetic, undirected life.
Siegfried, Director
Siegfried has written and directed two short films, La Faim in 1996 and C’est Noël deja? in 1997. He has also composed the music for the feature film A Vendre, directed by Laetitia Masson, and his own first feature, Louise (Take2).