Les Indésirables and Covid-19

“The real problem [or] the central mystery of politics is not sovereignty, but government; it is not God, but the angel; it is not the king, but ministry; it is not the law, but the police — that is to say, the governmental machine that they form and support.” Those are the words of the controversial Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, but they also describe the cinema of French filmmaker Ladj Ly and his interrogation of French social malaise. For Ly, the government can do no good; the poor, those at the mercy of the “governmental machine,” survive through class solidarity. And “survive” is the correct word to describe the cinema of Ly, and in particular his rendering of the plight of the poor: this is evident in both his 2019 Cannes competition film Les Misérables and in the new Les Indésirables, which siphons pent-up social anxieties to create an emotionally effective, even if ultimately politically reactive, social drama.

The progressive mayor of a Parisian suburb dies in the demolition of a decrepit building that he planned to replace with affordable housing. His replacement, the snotty and emotionally stunted Pierre (Alexis Manenti), inherits a righteously indignant population of largely North African immigrants angered by a gentrification plan that thinly disguises itself as a rehousing project. His aporophobia and Islamophobia only make the relationship more fraught (all the new Syrian refugees accepted into the city come from Christian backgrounds). As Pierre and his city government sniff out radicalizing potential, they pass “anti-gang” laws banning 15-to-18-year olds from gathering in groups in the town’s center and strictly enact a curfew of 8:00 PM for all minors — reminiscent of the tensity and imagery of the social restrictions globally experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic.

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