Power, the relationship to decisions, to citizenship, this arena is still little exploited in French cinema. What is happening at the level closest to the citizens, the cities? A rarity in the cinema, the film “The promises” by Thomas Kruithof manages to reconcile documentary aspect and suspense by shining its spotlight on a suburban town hall.
There have been the successes of Quai d’Orsay by Bertrand Tavernier or The exercise of the state by Pierre Schoeller. But these films evolved in the high spheres, the ministerial cabinets. In The promises, Isabelle Huppert plays a mayor who has planned not to run again after two terms. But he is dangled with an entry into the government. And this broken promise will trigger his ambition.
The challenge of the film is the renovation of a city that is falling into ruins. Reda Kateb, who plays the chief of staff of this suburban mayor, is pleased that a film is a thriller by talking about unsanitary housing and public policy.
How to reinvent politics ?
” How is it that this is not more at the heart of political debate today in the pre-presidential campaign? We don’t talk about the suburbs other than from the angle of delinquency, the police, Islamism… Me, the people I meet, especially when I go to film in this district of the Cité du Chêne Pointu, in Clichy -sous-Bois, in Seine-Saint-Denis, to make this film, it is people who take care. It is a real social fabric. Just that, a film that takes place in the suburbs and in which we don’t see a thug and a cop, it’s still something. »
Can we do politics differently? Reinvent it? Is it at the municipal level that the beating heart of politics lives? So many questions that this very successful film raises with intelligence.
► To listen also, the program All the cinemas of the world : When cinema films municipal politics