Εμείς

dselwyns4.0

People will call this boring, I will call this neo-Varda

shookone1.0

very static, cumbersome and ponderous. felt like a couple of concepts for shorts mashed into a blender for an unwarranted 2hrs colossus. nothing we've not seen yet done in a more thoughtful way before, especially concerning the filmic aspects of this dragger.

nick4.0

The initiative to see race in a country that discourages it is what makes Nous such a rare gem among French documentaries. No other documentary has dissected the French makeup to such an extent, and no other filmmaker fits the role as perfectly as Alice Diop—not even Ladj Ly.Starting from an ultra-white space resembling a snapshot of Jean Renoir's The Rules of the Game, Nous gradually switches between two worlds that are only physically connected by trains. Both class and race define this divide, but Diop indicates hope by slowly merging two perspectives into one, locating the spiritual similarities between two peoples—between "We" (Nous) and "They" (Ils), until it's all Nous.At its core, Nous highlights the importance of "traces" and representation, which has been Diop's proposition: to leave a Black heritage, both personally and grandly. As the offspring of working-class African immigrants, Diop has seen her forefathers live and die, contributing to a new motherland without leaving a trace; that is where cinema, as always, comes to the rescue. Through everyday vignettes inspired by James Joyce's Dubliners, Diop paints a soulful picture of the hidden, mostly Black side of France. Along with Ly, another so-called "banlieue director"—a term coined with racial undertones that she personally renounced—they represent the new hope for French cinema. Highly recommended.