THE OPINION OF THE “WORLD” – NOT TO BE MISSED
What a magnificent heist film we say to ourselves, in our heart of hearts, at the end of the session. Magnificent, of course, not to look like what we expect, like the greatest “neo-blacks”. Magnificent, more precisely, to be reworked from the inside, acclimatized to a geographical and social given, redefined according to an artistic temperament.
The artist, here, is called Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche, he is one of the greatest French filmmakers in activity and this is not well known. There will have been wind in the sails of his journey, which continues to carry him: birth in Algeria in 1966, settling in the city of Bosquets de Montfermeil (Seine-Saint-Denis), studies in urban anthropology, moving to Montreuil (Seine-Saint-Denis), debut in cinema entirely self-produced with the family with Wesh wesh, what’s going on? (2001)a suburban film that does not resemble suburban films.
Twenty-some years later – placing in ping these anthology pieces that are Bled Number One (2006) Or Last maquis (2008) –, Ameur-Zaïmeche, a pure and hard independent working over the long term, offers us The Temple Wood Gang, his seventh feature film, one of the most beautiful. The title is already dreaming, seems to bring us back, with the image of the Shaolin temple in the background, to the rich hours of kung-fu films from the Shaw Brothers studios in Hong Kong or soul compilations of the American rap group Wu-Tang Clan. In truth, the spirit that blows there is more hexagonal, version 9-3, Clichy-sous-Bois (Seine-Saint-Denis).
street school
Among the towers and the forecourts, the motorway slip roads and the garages, the church and the mechouis, a double-triggered action takes place there. Here, escaped from Balzac, M. Pons, who has just lost his mother and kindly does his trifecta each morning at the corner café when he is not babysitting his neighbours’ children, and who we will learn all the same that he was in other times a French army sniper. It matters. There, a band of Franco-Maghrebs of the older generation, rather quiet under their hats once the kalashes returned, who went to school in the Republic and in the streets together, took up the diagonal of delinquency together and organize a big coup that will allow them to continue feeding the pigeons of the neighborhood while worrying a little less about their future.
The first and the second know each other through the late mother of Pons, who was a grocer in her time, pampering the latter who nevertheless “chouraient” a few “bonbecs” to her. We look at each other without particular friendship but with respect, as if living under the same horizon. The story will ultimately hang up their respective destinies, in a way that we will hasten not to reveal. In the meantime, the big blow is being prepared without panic, inspired by a real affair.
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