Les Chiffonniers d’Emmaüs (1955) - film review

In the late 1940s, Abbé Pierre decides to open a centre for disadvantaged young people in a leafy suburb of Paris.  Whilst the house he has purchased for this function is being repaired, he encounters a number of social outcasts who agree to lend their support in exchange for food and lodging.  First there is Bastien, who has just left prison only to find that his wife has taken up with another man.  Then there is Etienne, a hot-headed young man who has escaped from a centre for delinquents, and who is obsessed with taking revenge on his father.  There is Djibouti, an older man who became a vagrant after being involved in a tragic road accident.  These are followed by many others, each man marked by tragedy and loss, each of whom discovers a new sense of purpose in Abbé Pierre’s project.  But before the scheme gets off the ground, homeless families start to turn up, desperate for support and a place to stay.  Abbé Pierre realises that a far greater challenge faces him – to provide homes and support for those who have no means of their own and whom the State has forgotten.  And so the Emmaüs movement was born.  But how will Abbé Pierre find the money to make his vision a reality...?

Les Chiffonniers d’Emmaüs is a faithful and highly poignant account of the origins of one of the world’s most famous humanitarian causes, the Emmaüs movement, which was the brain child of one man, Abbé Pierre. Even before he founded Emmaüs, a charity for the homeless which is still active today, Abbé Pierre was regarded as a national figure and hero in France.  He had played a prominent role in the French Resistance during WWII and subsequently became a leading politician, winning a place on France’s National Assembly.  Up until his death in 2007, he was one of the most respected and influential public figures in France, a man of great faith, courage and humanity who was practically accorded the status of a living saint.   The creation of Emmaüs was probably his single geatest achievement.  It is now an international charitable organisation working to combat poverty in 50 countries, including France.

This modest film goes some way to showing the circumstances and motivations that led to the birth of Emmaüs, focussing on the characters who were there at its inception.  Although it has a political subtext (as Abbé Pierre’s own personal introduction to the film implies), Les Chiffonniers d’Emmaüs is surprisingly not an overtly political, or even religious film.  The film’s main concerns are humanitarian, not political.  Its central message is that great good can come out of virtually anything, just as Emmaüs was originally financed by discarded trinkets reclaimed from the filthy dust heaps of Paris.

It may not be a faultless piece of cinema – the striking realism in some scenes jars with the conventional melodramatic approach in others (suggesting that its director, Robert Darène, was too afraid to embrace realism through fear of causing offence), and there is a mildly off-putting whiff of Hollywood-style sentimentality in a few places.  Yet, despite its imperfections, and thanks to some remarkable performances (Yves Deniaud will make you weep), this is an engaging and emotionally intense film, with a profound yet carefully underplayed spiritual dimension.   The film’s simple style and heart-rending portrayals of human suffering make it an effective piece of social realist drama, of the kind which was pretty rare in French cinema at the time, and a worthy tribute to the men and women who have selflessly striven to make Emmaüs a success.

© James Travers 2007

To learn more about Emmaüs and make a contribution visit:
Emmaus International Website
Emmaüs France Website

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