À la place du coeur (1998)
Directed by Robert Guédiguian

Film Review

Director Robert Guédiguian followed his critically acclaimed film Marius et Jeannette with this equally compelling and distinctive tale of love and strife in the poor region of Marseilles.   A characteristic of Guédiguian's films is how he brings a sense of nobility and depth to ordinary working class people, something which gives his films a strikingly poignant humanist slant.  With skilful use of flashbacks, this film tells the story from the perspective of a young pregnant mother, an approach which gives the film a pleasing intimacy without needless sentimentality.

Whilst the tone of À la place du coeur is predominantly optimistic (the warmth of the main characters mirrored by the sunny photography), the realities of life on the margins is never far from the surface.  The vulnerability of a pregnant teenager whose boyfriend is locked away, the enduring torment of the rape victim, the anguish of a mother who is prepared to do anything to get her future son-in-law freed  from jail…  All of these rich, complex emotions are there, an essential part of the tapestry of the film, but wedded with this harsh social realism is a constant belief that things will turn out fine in the end, that human suffering is not a natural state of affairs.  Guédiguian's depiction of the everyday life of ordinary working class people is both uplifting and poetic, yet it is also informed, honest and very credible.

Film Synopsis

Bébé and Clémentine are a mixed race couple who live in a poor district of Marseille.  They are deeply in love and even though they are still in their teens they intend to marry as soon as they can.  Bébé has the misfortune to get on the wrong side of a racist policeman, on whose false testimony he ends up in prison.  Clémentine then discovers that she is pregnant and finds she needs Bébé's support if she is to get through the ordeal of child birth.  The couple's only hope is to find the tourist whom Bébé is accused of raping and persuade her to testify in his favour...