The social cinema of Robert Guédiguian it’s a guarantee, you know. The sense of belonging, the immersion in a reality where passion and politics almost always end up intersecting, the Marseille coast caressed by the sun, its close group of actors (almost all friends), a tribe of now familiar faces who return film after film films starting with Ariane Ascaride. And the party continues! (about which we write review) is no exception and once again the French director of Armenian origins (also dusted off in the film in theaters from 11 April) tells of a humanity clinging to its contradictions and fragilities, busy with political activism, nostalgic claims of the past and a feeling of tenderness towards life and the time left to live.
History: from news to human comedy
The title And the party continues! it was decided before even starting to shoot, by the director’s own admission “we had made the irrevocable decision to make a film that would have a happy ending”. In fact, it is no coincidence that the disenchantment that harbored it The house by the seahere you seem to give way to one “serene melancholy”, a fundamental optimism that manifests itself both in the passionate outbursts of the younger generations and in the quiet reconciliation with the life of the older ones. Why “nothing is finished and it’s just the beginning”. And here it all starts with a news story that actually happened on 5 November 2018, when two dilapidated buildings on Rue d’Aubagne in the heart of Marseille, inhabited by the most fragile and disadvantaged sections of the citizenry, collapsed killing eight people.
In the film the tragedy is evoked by a caption, “suddenly, a terrible crash”, which accompanies some archive images in the opening scene. They are the boundaries within which the human stories of the characters in this snapshot of the contemporary: a community that rallies around the tragedy demonstrating solidarity and a deep sense of belonging. The heart and soul of the story, and of the working-class neighborhood in which it takes place, is Rose (Ariane Ascaride), yes, just like Rosa Luxemburg (at the behest of her father, an Armenian immigrant), an elderly woman, widowed and now close to retirement, at the helm of a large and united family, which is divided between her work as a nurse and her commitment as a left-wing militant in favor of the weakest. We are on the eve of the city elections and Rosa is one of the candidates, but her illusions begin to falter except she realizes that it is never too late to make her dreams come true, especially after meeting Henri (Jean-Pierre Darroussin), a passing bookseller and father of her son’s new girlfriend, who will make her lose her mind.
A cinema of civil commitment
What the viewer will be drawn into is the cinema that Robert Guédiguian has always loved to do: civil, social and immersive. Even in this one human comedy back to Marseilleher hometown, the stage of the initial tragedy around which the daily life of the local community and Rosa’s family develops. A community engaged in political struggle as demonstrated by the volunteer activities in the occupied church or in the nearby detention center for migrants, and the mobilizations of citizens outraged by the uncomfortable conditions in which the victims of the collapse found themselves. Everything takes place between the neighborhood square over which the statue of Homer silently watches over, the party sections where Rosa fights to find an agreement on the leaders, the houses overlooking the sea, the narrow streets leading to the port and the coves where one abandons oneself to the pleasure of idleness.
The destinies of the various characters intersect around it starting with Rosa, a passionate woman who moves between hospital wards and party meetings, determined to wrest the city government from the domination of the right that has lasted for decades. “To change the world you have to be eager” and Rosa knows this, just as she knows that to beat your political opponent you need three things: “One the program, two the program and three… the program”; all her life she has wanted the world to be like that of great tits, and today, she admits, “my heart belongs more to the great tits than to my companions”; with Henri he rediscovers the love and fighting spirit of the old left; and then there is his brother Tonio (in honor of Antonio Gramsci) “taxi driver perpetually in love”, the last communist left in Marseille. But there are also Rosa’s two children: Sarkiswho runs an Armenian bar and dreams of a large family with his new partner, and Minas who instead would like to leave to help the fighters of Nagorno Karabakh.
Marseille becomes a crossroads of old and new political issues, a place of utopias and social battles, of solidarity and sharing, the theater of a confrontation between generations. In And the party continues! we talk about revolution, identity, roots, ideology and crisis of the left, tired and now incapable of intercepting the needs of the working class; but also of hope and love towards others, because “you should have two lives: the first to help yourself, the second to help others”. A film about the courage to start over perhaps in front of a plate of “linguine, anchovies and walnuts”, a hymn to life, to rediscovered humanity and to politics as a collective act.
Conclusions
And the party continues!, as already explained in the review, the narrative to which Guédiguian has always accustomed us continues: cinema of civil commitment with a poignant and melancholy look at the present. Once again ideology and human comedy, feelings and politics intertwine in an extraordinary portrait of contemporaneity: the French director tells of a humanity clinging to its contradictions and fragilities, busy with political activism, nostalgic claims for the past and a feeling of tenderness towards life and the time left to live.
Because we like it
- Guédiguian’s social cinema: melancholic, poignant and refined in the attempt to restore a snapshot of the contemporary.
- The human comedy that is intertwined with social and political news.
- Marseille, as a place of generational confrontation, a crossroads between past and present.
What’s wrong
- An audience not accustomed to a narrative that takes its time may not appreciate it.
