Wesh wesh, qu'est-ce qui se passe? (2001)
Directed by Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche

Film Review

For his first film, Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche paints a depressing picture of social collapse in the immigrant dominated suburbs of Paris (what French politicians refer to as les banlieues difficiles).  The film was shot on a low resolution digital camera and feels more like a documentary than a piece of drama.  It conveys a real sense of the alienation, antagonism and desperation felt by those who are driven to the margins of society by social policies and police tactics that appear to be hell bent on creating a festering underclass in our cities.  The brutality of the subject matter is accentuated by the raw manner in which it is presented to us, but it is also tempered by the warmth of the main characters (in particular the central protagonist Kamel and his mother), who appear optimistic and resolved to make the best of a bad job, in spite of the fact that everything appears to be against them.

Ameur-Zaïmeche's film feels improvised and looks as if it was shot on a shoestring budget, something that gives it a rough, visceral edge, bringing the spectator closer to the grim reality that it portrays.  Those scenes in which the camera is rigidly static have an almost unbearably oppressive quality - you can actually feel the hopelessly confining nature of the lives in which the protagonists are trapped, and you begin to understand why, for many of them, crimes seems to be the only way out of a life of humiliating poverty and abuse.  Most striking are the long panning sequences which show nothing but a seemingly endless vista of urban decay - hard to believe that this is the capital of modern day France rather than a ghetto town in some impoverished African state.

Wesh wesh, qu'est-ce qui se passe? is an uncomfortable film to watch, partly because of its unpolished vérité approach, which spits in the face of film convention, but mainly because it offers a view of our society that we would rather not see and reminds us of the constantly expanding gulf that exists between the haves and the have nots.   Evidently nothing has changed since Mathieu Kassovitz's La Haine made us aware of the imminence of social meltdown on the neglected housing estates of Paris in the mid-1990s.  Ameur-Zaïmeche's film may not be as slick as Kassovitz's but it is just as eloquent and powerfully argues that the problem of urban crime can only get worse as politicians fail to come to grips with the issue and the police go on acting like Nazi storm troopers.  The film is a wake-up call for us all, not just those who are privileged to reside in the Élysée Palace.

Film Synopsis

Having completed a stretch in prison for drugs trafficking, Kamel, an illegal immigrant, returns to his Algerian family in the rundown suburbs of Paris and tries to make a fresh start.  His attempts to find work are endlessly frustrated by the fact that he does not have a passport or work visa, but he perseveres.  Around Kamel, the consequences of social breakdown are all too evident - street crime, poverty, police brutality, the detritus of urban decay - but he feels powerless to change things for the better.  Then, one day, he has no choice but to take a stand...