Trois huit (2001) - film review

The life of Pierre, an ordinary working class man, takes a sudden turn for the worse when he decides to work night shifts in his glass-producing factory.  Immediately, he is picked on by another man, Fred, who seems determined to make his life misery.  Pierre’s unassuming and gentle nature compels him to suffer Fred’s humiliating taunts and physical abuse, and he even tries to make a friend of his enemy.  In the end, Pierre’s will is crushed and he hits back.  But by this stage, he has lost the support of his wife and the respect of his young son, Victor…

If there is one category of film which French cinema has done well in recent years it is the social realist drama, and Trois huit is a particularly distinctive and memorable example of the genre.  With a grimly uncompromising depiction of male relationships in a familiar working class setting, the film is both disturbing and harrowingly realistic.  The apparent simplicity of Philippe Le Guay’s direction exposes the complexity of the relationship of the film’s two principal protagonists – the near-psychopathic bully Fred and his seemingly willing victim Pierre.  The nature of the relationship between the two men is both baffling and believable, with a curious dependency that could be mistaken for symbiosis.  Pierre’s lack of self-esteem makes him a willing punch-bag for Fred’s pent-up aggression, implying there is something darkly masochistic in being a bully’s victim; perhaps Pierre feels perversely gratified by the time and attention that Fred gives him, the next best thing to the love that is elsewhere absent from his life.  As befits a good piece of social realism, the film boasts some fine cinematography and faultless naturalistic performances, including exceptional contributions from the two male leads, Gérald Laroche and Marc Barbé.

© James Travers 2005

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