À l’origine (2009) - film review

Philippe Miller is a small time crook who, one day, comes across an abandoned road works.  The new road would have brought prosperity to the region but its construction was halted by the intervention of a group of beetle-loving environmentalists.  Seeing an opportunity to make easy money, Philippe hires some men to resume work on the road and passes himself off as the site foreman.  All goes well until he meets a woman, the mayor of a town through which the road passes.  This encounter will change Philippe forever...

Director Xavier Giannoli’s fourth film, À l’origine, is his most ambitious work to date, an arresting social thriller which combines the raw visual power of an epic western with the subtle intimacy of his previous romantic dramas, Une aventure (2005) and Quand j’étais chanteur (2006).  With this powerful study of human frailty, which also serves as a metaphor for the failings of our socio-economic system, Giannoli leaves us in no doubt that he is one of the most talented filmmakers working in France today.  

Here, François Cluzet plays a con artist who sets out to make a quick buck by restarting an aborted road construction project.  When he realises what the new road means to the local community, and having fallen for the town’s mayor (Emmanuelle Devos), this swindler has a Damascene conversion.  Instead of absconding with the money, he does the decent thing and oversees the road’s construction.  Incredible as it may seem, this far-fetched scenario was not lifted from a Frank Capra film but from a real-life incident, which took place in Northern France about a decade ago.  

Partly inspired by Kipling’s The Man Who Would Be King, Giannoli crafts a compelling and intensely moving portrait of a man who discovers his true identity by pretending to be something he is not.  There is a superb irony in the fact that a conman finds his redemption by perpetrating the greatest swindle of his career, and in doing so sets out to a achieve an immense social good.  In the course of witnessing this breathtaking subterfruge, the spectator is given pause to reflect on the extent to which the whole Western socio-economic system is underpinned by lies. If one man can get a stretch of motorway built on a lie, just imagine what a government composed of seasoned politicians can get away with.     

With its muted palette of greys and blues, restrained mise-en-scène and bleak industrial setting, À l’origine has a cold near-documentary realism about it which renders its story particularly meaningful and humane.  In one of the most challenging roles of his career, François Cluzet is harrowingly convincing as a complex individual who is miraculously redeemed by love and compassion for others, whilst Emmanuelle Devos is simply stunning as the woman who helps Cluzet’s character to find his soul.  These star turns are superbly complemented by some authentic supporting contributions (notably from Brice Fournier, Vincent Rottiers and Roch Leibovici).  With its gripping performances, compelling story and stark visual poetry, À l’origine is a powerful odyssey of love and redemption, one of the most striking French films in recent years.

© James Travers 2010

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