35 Rhums; I watched this film set in a Paris that seems a bit more real than the impossibly chic, beautiful, fantasy destination that is often portrayed.
I loved it. I could imagine myself within the world of the almost all black cast. This wasn't a world of lonely clandestine individuals dependent on the good graces of the well-to-do française, or brimming with the myth of what sometimes seems to be an ethereal, otherworldly sexuality. Dare I say it was lacking in clichés and was just ordinary.
An ordinariness that somehow made it a fantastically touching film to watch.
Be it the father-daughter relationship/the unfussy attraction between boy and girl that is shown with a boyish bit of posturing and a kiss that is probably the sexist I've seen on screen; awkwardly timed which added to the realness of it - so far removed from that perfect, smooth, blurred sex on screen that markedly does not exist in reality but that we are so used to seeing reflected back at us from a film reel - in fact there was no sex scene shown in the film at all/the love triangle as inexplicable as occurs in real life - why her? I'm here and I love you/the workplace camaraderie with no pretense at family, not too overdone - metro, boulot, dodo - I loved it all. Surely the acting was phenomenal. The concentrated quiet way that we navigate situations such as a class debate or a family gathering were played out to perfection. One aspect of the film that I most related to was illustrated by a character never having any fresh milk in the fridge when needed. Being single, I share the reality of having either too little or so much that it goes bad. I identify as that certain type of youngish person living a nomadic, singular life of frequent geographic relocation and aversion to putting down solid roots.
To watch these lives was to identify pieces of my own in a very real way. So much so that the characters appeared to really live them and not just try them on for the months it took to film.
Now; if you are of the happy-go-lucky persuasion then this film likely wont be your cup of tea. In a way it is a drama of tragedies and how people deal with them. But the heart of the story, fittingly, is love and family.
IMDb - 35 Shots of Rum (2008)
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