Director: Reza Alexandre Serkanian
Writer: Reza Alexandre Serkanian
Cast: Abdel Diack, Koroba Magassouba, Salma Tabache, Dominique Blanc, Jacques Bonnaffé
Running time: 1hr 20mins
Reza Alexandre Serkanian has been making films for over three decades. But despite amassing an extensive filmography in that time, Les Intrus [Intruders] is only his second feature-length narrative movie.
Being more experienced in short films (where coming in late and getting out early is more common, and it is more expected for audiences to come to their own conclusions on ambiguities) or documentaries (where a more direct form of exposition is acceptable to fill in gaps in the story) might have left him a little exposed in this instance. In his tight 80-minute realist drama, he may have bitten off a little more than he can chew – taking on two intersecting stories of a group of refugees struggling to make a home in a hostile new country, and a crumbling family at war with itself; and only scratching the surface on both fronts.
Moussa (Koroba Magassouba) Ibra (Abdel Diack) and Sarah (Salma Tabache) are three undocumented migrants, in hiding in rural France. From assorted backgrounds, they have each survived perilous journeys, and escaped unspeakable hardships on either sides of the Mediterranean, before finding the sanctuary of a farm owned by Corinne (Dominique Blanc).
But this is France on the brink of an extremely dark chapter. A country where, given the choice between socialism and barbarism, the ‘liberal’ centre has capitulated to the fascist right-wing. As threats close in from all sides – via the mechanisms of the state, or emboldened racists taking matters into their own hands – an uncertain – and possibly brutal – future awaits the three youngsters.
As pressure starts to mount, things come to a head when Corinne disappears. Arriving on the scene, her splintered and bitter family arrives on the scene – and begin leaping to increasingly hostile conclusions. Perhaps embodying the state of the nation, Corinne’s divorced husband Rodolphe (Jacques Bonnaffé) wades into the picture flaunting his unabashed racism, declaring he “knows Africans” thanks to his military service there, accusing them of using herbal tea for witchcraft, and of murdering his ex-wife. At the same time, Corinne’s children – resentful of their father’s ignorance, but also of their mother’s charitable nature – are bent on obtaining power of attorney for Corinne, on the basis that no sane person would spend money on immigrants over their private property or their estranged family – mirroring the cold, legal aggression of France’s alleged centrists, which might be less overt in its racism, but now works to the same ends.
In this case, the eviction of the three Black migrants from the family farm. It does not take much imagination to figure out what that would mean as a metaphor for the rest of France. Unfortunately, though, it is not so easy to piece the rest of the story together in a way that makes it as engaging as it could have been.
Reza Alexandre Serkanian’s cinematography is gorgeous, and complex – he uses the camera to paint pictures of fantastic depth and contrast. His cast, meanwhile, faultlessly delivers their dialogue with intensity and gravitas – with standout performer being Bonnaffé, carrying the eery, joking menace of a Shane Meadows antagonist (think Stephen Graham in This is England). Cheery and even affable intermittently, before sinking into relentless bouts of rage and aggression. But as good as those performances as, and as impeccably as the performers are framed by the camera, it never feels like we even get close to knowing them.
In the final moments of the film, in which Corinne – or perhaps a visual manifestation of her spirit – returns to address the migrants, celebrating Moussa’s 18th birthday in one of her fields, she becomes the only character whose motives are made overt. She argues she doesn’t want to be a saviour to them, or to make a political point (although it could very well be argued you couldn’t do what she has done apolitically) – but rather because she appreciates humanity. She wants to surround herself with people, to enjoy their company, and to feel enriched by their different life-stories and worldviews.
It might be a nice sentiment, and give us something to take away into our own lives after the movie, but it is also something that the rest of the film has not managed to live up to. Beyond wanting to live, and to be able to remain somewhere safer than the places they have fled, there are gaps in the personalities of each refugee. We don’t know what they hope for, or fear. Likewise, for all his pantomime villainy we don’t know what Rodolphe wants, beyond threatening three migrants to amuse himself. And we don’t really grasp what, as humans, Corinne’s children would see as a best-case-scenario, beyond getting hold of the farm to (most likely) sell.
This is not helped by a final edit that seems a little hurried. Scenes do not seem to have a definitive end-point, and are sometimes cut together with moments which occur some time later. Characters seem to have sudden, and not-entirely-earned changes of heart, depending on how quickly the filmmaker decided the story needed to move on – and the climactic speech of Bonnaffé as Corinne is undermined, because we have had so little introduction to her earlier. I do not know the ins and outs of this production, but it seems as though there was more story to tell here – and either budgetary constraints, or other logistical issues may have led to filming wrapping early.
Whatever the case, we don’t get under anyone’s skin. And so, while the film’s story has admirable qualities on an allegorical basis, it comes up short when it comes to examining human relationships.
There is a lot to like about Les Intrus. The cinematography is stunning, and the ideas driving the story are admirable. Meanwhile, from top to bottom, the cast excels, elevating a slice-of-life story to gripping human drama in a way that almost papers over the cracks. However, it feels like – for whatever reason – Reza Alexandre Serkanian has had to trim some of the connective tissue from his own script. Scenes lack a definitive aim, or end point, and it is often hard to pin down the motivations driving any of the characters.