La Braconne (2014)
Directed by Samuel Rondière

Film Review

Director Samuel Rondière makes a promising debut with this understated but compelling feature, which successfully combines elements of buddy movie and traditional crime drama into an unsettling character study with darkly humorous undertones.  Set mostly in the kind of barren urban wasteland that has become ubiquitous on the outskirts of our major cities, mostly football stadium-sized car parks seemingly devoid of human life, the film also evokes the classic western.  The austere, depopulated setting not only helps to set the grim tone of the piece, it also heightens the sense of isolation and vulnerability of the main protagonists, a world-weary hoodlum who looks as if he should have been put out to pasture years ago and the wild child thug with whom he forms an unlikely alliance.

The concepts that Rondière weaves into La Braconne are far from original but, by focusing on the relationship between the main characters, he succeeds in crafting a distinctive and surprisingly endearing drama whose main strength is its deft handling of the generational divide.  It is only when Rondière gets bogged down with plot mechanics (most notably in the film's last twenty minutes) that the film begins to drift and lose our attention.  It is easy to draw comparison with Jacques Audiard's Regarde les hommes tomber (1994) and Un prophète (2009), which also revolve around the relationship of a seasoned hoodlum and a rookie who is easily lured into a life of crime, but Rondière's approach is more direct, more uncompromisingly brutal, avoiding the stylistic embellishments that Audiard feels are necessary to his art.

Rondière's aggressively pared back mise-en-scène and razor-sharp editing not only give his film a heightened sense of reality (at times it feels like a docu-drama), these also allow us to get closer to the two main characters and empathise with the sheer hopelessness of their lives.  As the older hoodlum, Patrick Chesnais gives one of the most nuanced and poignant performances of his long and illustrious career.  His character looks like a relic of a classic 1950s policier, a career criminal who, having squandered his life looking for that elusive pot of grisbi, has ended up eking out a threadbare existence on the margins of a society from which he is permanently excluded.

It is evident from the outset that this tragic wreck of a man is what the younger protagonist, superbly portrayed by newcomer Rachid Youcef, is destined to become - if he gets to live so long.  It is the edgy, totally believable interplay between these two disparate characters that makes the film worth watching, and it is fascinating to see how, through this unlikely father-son relationship, they develop and change into subtly different versions of themselves.  Unlike your bog standard crime drama, La Braconne dares to deal with deeper themes and serves as an astute study in how one human being can influence another, for good or for ill.  Samuel Rondière leaves us hungry for more - an auspicious start for a filmmaker of exceptional promise.

Film Synopsis

Not yet twenty, Driss gets by with his small-time criminal exploits.  His path crosses that of Danny, a world-weary crook who roams industrial areas in his old Mercedes.  With Danny's help, the naive and cocky Driss gains an apprenticeship in crime and soon picks up a few useful tips.  But the old hoodlum is leading the carefree younger man towards a violent world which will soon shatter his illusions...