Credits
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Summary
Jallel, a young Tunisian man, arrives in France hoping to start a better life. By
pretending to be an Algerian political refugee, he manages to get a temporary visa and
a bed at a shelter for homeless people, where he makes a number of friends. At a
bar, he falls under the spell of Nassera, a second-generation immigrant who is struggling
to bring up her son single-handedly. Nassera agrees to marry Jallel so that he can
obtain a permanent visa to stay in France, for a price. Jallel manages to find the
money to pay Nassera by selling fruit and flowers in the Paris metro. The day of
the wedding, Nassera gets second thoughts and abandons Jallel, who then falls into a deep
depression. Jallel then finds himself in a hospital for the mentally ill, where
he is befriended by an emotionally disturbed young woman, Lucie – who turns out to be
a raving nymphomaniac. Shortly after leaving the hospital, Jallel again runs into
Lucie, and discovers that she has attached herself to him...
Review
Having pursued a successful career as an actor, Tunisian born Abdel Kechiche made a promising
debut as a film director with this good humoured yet poignant drama about an illegal immigrant
and his socially excluded friends during his stay in France. Kechiche was
honoured with a brace of awards for the film, including the Golden Lion First Film Award
at the Venice Film Festival in 2000. Whilst the film has its faults – some of the
plot developments are totally unbelievable and some of the characters are far nearer to
sitcom stereotypes than reality – it manages to paint an engaging and generally convincing
portrait of those social groups we rarely see in cinema – namely the homeless, illegal
immigrants, and people with mental illness. There are also some pleasing comic touches
to offset some of the harsher realism which the film broaches but doesn’t seem to have
the courage to tackle too seriously.
In the role of Jallel, Sami Bouajila confirms his standing as one of France’s leading actors. Bouajila has both the physique and the personality to be convincing in this kind of role, and manages to bring out in the film its three strongest elements: its poetry, comedy and humanism. Élodie Bouchez is somewhat less convincing in her role – indeed it is hard to see what exactly attracts Bouajila’s character to hers - but her skill in handling a very difficult part becomes apparent as the film progresses. The film’s most touching moments are the scenes with Bouajila and Aure Atika in the first (and far superior) half of the film. As a social realist drama, La Faute à Voltaire doesn’t quite make the grade, but that presumably is not its director’s intention. The film does have any great political ambitions, although it may perhaps change slightly the way we regard illegal immigrants and homeless people. Rather, it is a touching and humorous portrayal of how people who literally have nothing form relationships and attempt to make a life for themselves in a society which offers them little in the way of support. © James Travers 2003 Write a review for this film... User Comments
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