Un monde sans pitié (1989) - film review

Better a dropout than a yuppie, that’s the philosophy of Hippo, a young man who has turned his back on the entire capitalist system.  Why should he work his nuts off, making himself someone else’s slave, when he can get by quite happily on his poker winnings?   He has one responsibility, however:  to look after his younger brother.  But since his brother is willing to give him a cut of the money he makes as a drugs dealer, he doesn’t see this as too much of an imposition.  Hippo isn’t rich, he doesn’t have designer clothes or a nice car, but he is happy in his smug self-sufficiency.  And then he meets Nathalie.  She is everything he detests – a prim middleclass student who is intent on pursuing a successful career as an interpreter.  And yet Hippo is fascinated by her; she invades his every thought; he wants to possess her.  Although initially suspicious of her new admirer, Nathalie soon takes a liking to him.  She is impressed by Hippo’s honesty and is charmed by his strange romantic qualities.  But, even as they fall in love, each has to recognise that they come from two completely different worlds.  Nathalie wants to belong to the busy materialistic world.  Hippo seeks merely to reject it...

With three impressive short films under his belt, Eric Rochant made his feature debut with what is arguably one of the most important French films of the 1980s.   Un monde sans pitié not only tells a poignant love story, skilfully crafted with immense sincerity and lyricism, but it also offers a convincing portrayal of youth disaffection in the late 1980s.  Rochant may not be the most productive of film makers – he has made only seven full length films in the past twenty years – but he is highly regarded.  His films often deal with important social and political themes and give an honest, and sometimes provocative, reflection of contemporary France.  Un monde sans pitié is unquestionably Rochant’s best work to date, a thoughtful drama with existential undercurrents that appears more relevant today than when it was first released. 

The film offered Hippolyte Girardot his first leading role and he carries the part of the rebellious Hippo magnificently.  The 33-year old actor (who looks no older than 25 on screen) has an extraordinary presence that evokes something of James Dean in Rebel Without a cause (1955) and the young Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront (1954).  Girardot’s portrayal has an urban-Byronesque quality that is both endearing and disturbing – disturbing because we never know what his character is capable of.  Hippo represents that side of us all that longs to be free, yet he is a tragic shadow of a man whose freedom is entirely illusory.  In his subsequent career, Hippolyte Girardot would deliver many great performances but he would rarely be as good as he is in this film.

© filmsdefrance.com 2009

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