Robert Guédiguian's La Ville est Tranquille | The Town Is Quiet (2015)

Although I've only seen Robert Guédiguian's Le Promeneur du Champs-de-Mars, which is untypical of many of his twenty-one films, Christophe Kanchieff's book on the film director and his film's prepared me very well for what I was about to see. I think though that, although I personally loved the film, some appear to think it's his most bleak.

Well, Michèle (Ariane Ascaride) slaves away in the fish trade, her husband is an out-of-work alcoholic uninterested in the family, her daughter Fiona (Julie-Marie Parmentier) is a heroin addict with a young daughter and an absent father and prostitutes herself for three hundred francs for anyone who'll have her. And all this is set against the dockers' unrest, traditional political allegiances no longer applying with the working class voting for extreme right-wing racist parties, and so on. Even the parents of Paul (Jean-Pierre Daroussan) don't think they'll vote again, and don't blame their ex-docker son for forking out 3500 francs a month on payments for his taxi, the traitor.

And things get worse as Michèle realises prescribed medicines won't work for Fiona, who has no faith in methadone, and after taking a drug cocktail nearly dies until Ariane bundles her into the shower to come to. The small community of L'Estaque north-east of Marseille is full of little kindnesses, such as Paul filling Michèle's small moped tank so she can get to work, and even giving her three hundred francs free of change when he sees her hustling for custom among the taxi rank. But Paul returns to Michèle for sex as he's fallen for her, although he pays Michèle for the service, a woman hitherto completely faithful to her husband. Meanwhile, Michèle returns to her childhood lover Gérard (Gérard Maylan), who indirectly caused her to have a very bloody abortion: she's got the money to pay for Fiona's farine (smack). And then Paul takes taxi fares out of his permitted hours and loses his licence, thus forcing him to take illegal fares from unsuspecting strangers at the airport.

It can only end in tragedy: Michèle is at her wits end because she can no longer find the money for Fiona'a habit so she gives her a lethal dose and Gérard helps her to make it look like suicide. Then Gérard reveals his despair by shooting his skull off in the street: he's a hired killer as well as a bar owner. And that's without even mentioning other things.

However, the film ends of an upnote: young Sarkis, the enthusiastic piano player, gets his wish for a grand piano and plays in the narrow street to an appreciative audience.