Film: 35 Shots Of Rum
Release date: 19th October 2009
Certificate: 12
Running time: 100 mins
Director: Claire Denis
Starring: Alex Descas, Mati Diop, Nicole Dogue, Grégoire Colin, Jean-Christophe Folly
Genre: Drama
Studio: New Wave
Format: DVD
Country: France/Germany
35 Shots Of Rums is a minimalist study of love, and the sometimes inevitable separation with which love comes hand in hand. Claire Denis gently weaves a tale of intimacy between a group of people living in the same apartment building in the Parisian suburbs. The film was well received by critics after its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival.
35 Shots Of Rum follows a brief but undefined passage in the lives of Lionel (Alex Descas), a widowed train driver, and his grown daughter, Joséphine (Mati Diop), who live in a block of flats in the suburbs of Paris.
We are introduced to Joséphine's love interest, Noé (Gregoire Colin), who lives upstairs, and just as the absence of her mother is an ever-present spectre hanging over proceedings, so too is Noé's inevitable departure, as he dips in and out of the action due to work commitments. Although Noé's devotion to Joséphine is often questionable, Lionel struggles to come to terms with the fact that Joséphine will at some point fly the nest, whether it is with or without Noé. Lionel is also the recipient of what seems to be unrequited love from Gabrielle (Nicole Dogue), a taxi driver who also lives in the same building and clearly has feelings for Lionel.
The film follows the paradox of Joséphine and Noé’s blossoming romance, along with Lionel’s loosening grasp of his relationship with his daughter. As the characters' lives delicately interweave, we are introduced to minor characters that gently push the narrative along, enforcing the theme of separation which Denis skilfully keeps at the forefront of the piece. The climax of the action allows the audience to understand the true meaning of the 35 shots, and ultimately concludes the story in a vein in keeping with the piece's slow pace and minimalist style...
To put it bluntly, this film is slow. However, this is not a weakness, but rather adds weight to the film. Denis is dealing with real life, and unlike Hollywood, real life isn't lived at a frenetic pace with enough dialogue to make a script the size of War And Peace. Dialogue is sparse and no words are wasted, with Denis preferring to tell the story through her actors' demeanour, highlighted by expert camera work. For the majority of the opening ten minutes of the film, we are given subtle music set to the backdrop of trains criss-crossing their way through Paris, as well as a patient browse around the protagonists' home. This allows us to settle into the tempo of the film, and ease into the steady lives that Lionel and Joséphine lead.
Descas and Diop both play their parts in exemplary fashion. The intimacy between the two is beautifully crafted, so much so that it is at first perfectly feasible that the two are lovers. Descas finds the perfect balance between being a loving father who wants his daughter to be independent, and a man struggling with the realisation that he is about to lose his closest companion. Much of this should be credited to Denis whom, as writer, only gives Lionel a solitary line in the whole film with which to express his feelings towards his daughter's imminent departure - therefore forcing Descas to portray the emotion through body language alone. The same can be said for the rest of the cast, who play each part, no matter how small, with the level of skill required from such a thin script.
Denis shies away from informing the audience to such an extent that it affects the film in an adverse way. We never fully understand the relationship between Lionel and Gabrielle, yet both are main characters within the plot. We take a brief trip with Lionel and Josephine to visit the grave of their late loved one, where we meet a lady who is potentially a friend, or sister of Joséphine's mother. A tragedy which is important to one the central characters in the film is dealt with in a brief manner, and with no explanation whatsoever.
Along with unexplained instances within the plot, there is also a tendency for scenes to succeed each other in a rather awkward and clumsy fashion. Again, as a result of this, we are left wondering why we are now being shown a different setting, and being thrown straight into the midst of the action. This happens regularly within the film, and although this does not pose as much of a problem as the aforementioned holes in the plot, it adds a mild sense of confusion to proceedings and could have easily been avoided by adding small segments into the beginning of some scenes
35 Shots Of Rum stands out as one of the best contemporary films to deal with the minutiae of suburban life. Its main themes are dealt with by the deftest and most gentle touches, even if the overall lack of slickness to the film somewhat overshadows its many virtues. This film should definitely be seen, though, even if it is just to appreciate Alex Descas and Mati Diop giving a master class in the art of depicting subtle intimacy. CPA
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