Dernier été (1981) - film review

As developers transform the port of Marseilles increasingly into a tourist attraction, Gilbert and his working class friends begin to realise that their future may not lie in the region.  Whilst deciding what to do with their lives, they make a living by doing odd jobs and chancing some petty crime.  Gilbert meets a young woman who works at a local factory and with whom he falls in love.  Perhaps his dream of a new and better life will be attainable after all?

Robert Guédiguian co-directed this, his first film, with Frank Le Wita. It is set in his hometown of Marseilles, a region which provides the location for virtually all of his films to date.  The film combines a familiar film noir plot with a striking social realist perspective, the result being an  original, poignant and intensely humanist work.  The futility of a life without  purpose is set against the need for individual freedom and is resolved, in true film noir fashion, with the death of the principal protagonist.   The film’s two stars, Gérard Meylan and Ariane Ascaride (both excellent subjects for this kind of film), would appear in many of Guédiguian’s subsequent films, most notably in his popular 1997 work Marius et Jeannette.

© James Travers 2006

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