Seight the stars of Paris – airing this evening at 9.20pm on Rai 3 – it’s one moving and dramatic fairy tale about the special meeting between two outcasts of society: a mature homeless woman and an illegal African child.
Under the stars of Paristhe plot
Christine (Catherine Frot) is a homeless woman who lives in the slums of Paris, in an atrium under the Seine bridge. One day meets a black child, Suli (Mahamadou Yaffa)who shows her a photo of him with his mother, accompanied by a certificate of expulsion from France.
Christine tries to tell him that she can’t help him, but the little one, who He comes from Eritrea, doesn’t understand a word of French. Despite attempts to remove him, Suli follows Christine making her understand the need to find her mother and so the “odd couple” begins to wander around the French capital looking for someone who has spotted them.
Until, after much wandering, a homeless man advises them to go to Roissy airport from where the deportation flights depart. Christine and Suli rush to the airport in the hope of finding the woman before boarding.
Mahamadou Yaffa and Catherine Frot in a scene from “Under the Stars of Paris”. (UBU workshops)
A film that mixes poetry and social issues
Directed by former documentarian Claus Drexel, Under the stars of Paris And an urban fable that addresses the problem of migration as, perhaps, Charlie Chaplin would have done in the last century. Stirring urgent social (and political) issues to the magic that arises in the encounter between two solitudes. A bit like what happened in the past The brata masterpiece by the then Charlot from 1921.
With a touch of Aki Kaurismaki’s cinema tooDrexel reports a “simple” story without ever being invasive, leaving all the space necessary for the two protagonists to get to know each other and be loved by the viewer through their personal stories. Even if Christine’s past is only hinted at in a few flashbacks. A simple and essential job, therefore, certainly moving, even if, at times, the emotion seems almost studied on paper.
Stay anyway a more than dignified operation to reflect, and possibly shake consciences, on people of the “forgotten” who live in big cities and which seem invisible to the eyes of those who live there.
Mahamadou Yaffa and Catherine Frot. (UBU workshops)
Catherine Frot, the lady of French comedy
Parisian real, born in 1956, at the end of the seventies he founded the theater company in his early twenties Compagnie du Chapeau Rouge. Performing on stages with many for many years classics like The cherry orchard And The Seagull by Chekhov.
Catherine Frot. (Getty Images)
He made his film debut in 1980 in the movie My uncle from America by Alain Resnais. After many small parts, in the following decade he finally achieved the fame he deserved thanks to some comedies that, in an irreverent way, criticize the French bourgeoisie. Including the very famous The idiots’ dinner of 1998 and A female relationship.
After winning a César in 2006 for Lessons of happinessCatherine she “specializes” in the role of the mature, cheerful and very messed up woman, showing his natural talent in building well-rounded characters. Recently, she added another hilarious role to his filmography: Edith’s in the film A happy man. Where he plays a wife who, after 40 years of marriage, she reveals to her husband that inside she has always felt like a man.
iO Donna © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED