Shane Slater
In 2019, French filmmaker Ladj Ly made a grand arrival with his Oscar-nominated thriller Les Miserables. Exploring a similar milieu of a Parisian suburb divided along class and racial lines, his follow-up Les Indésirables follows the tensions between an activist and the upstart mayor who is determined to marginalize her working-class neighbourhood. Ahead of the film’s screening at Film at Lincoln Center’s Rendez-Vous with French Cinema 2024, Awards Radar caught up with Ly to chat about the making of the film and its resonant themes.
Shane Slater: How did you get the idea for this film?
Ladj Ly: When I wrote Les Misérables, the idea was already there. But clearly, not everything was going to fit in one film. So the structure of cutting things up into a sequel and then coming up with a trilogy was really there from the get go. The idea being, to have these three chapters spanning 30 years of life in the same neighborhood was the departure point, with the first one treating the question of police violence, the second one being the housing crisis, and the third is to come.
SS: The opening scene of film with the coffin being carried down the stairs is so solemn compared to the tensions of the rest of the film. How did you arrive at this opening and this tone?
LL: It was very important to me to start the film with as strong a sequence as possible. As strong as scene setting as possible. And with my co-writer, the question that we had was, “What could we think up that would in one single scene, sort of hold all of the issues that one might face living in this building and in this staircase.” And so, taking the coffin down like this for about five minutes was the the decision that we came to, to launch the rest of the film.
SS: The Roger Roche character is so interesting and he reminded me of the lead character in the film Mountains, whose demolition work is causing the gentrification of his own community. How did you approach the writing and casting of this character?
LL: This character took inspiration from somebody that I knew. Unfortunately, such people exist who are driven by ambition. Who often start from a good intention, but eventually betray themselves and the community that they had good intentions toward. And in terms of the casting, Steve Tientcheu and I had worked together on Les Misérables, where he played the mayor. So, him becoming the deputy mayor here was kind of a natural progression.
SS: Your films have a strong activist quality. What has been the impact of your filmmaking with regards to the issues you are addressing?
LL: For sure, my first film had quite a loud impact, perhaps more than this one. It seems that the housing crisis is a subject that seems to interest people a little bit less than police violence did. But that first one definitely had some effect of shifting some things in the discourse, albeit at a small scale, but but still to some degree.
Practically, what these films and the success means for us, is that we’re able to continue on this project of starting cinema schools that we run in four different countries and hopefully more. They offer free cinema education, to train a new generation of people to be able to tell their own stories also.
SS: The ending is quite memorable and could be interpreted in different ways. Do you find it to be hopeful, or are you more pessimistic?
LL: It’s an ending that I hope people will find hopeful, especially because of the way Anta’s character (Haby Keita) refuses violence, and hopefully comes to take power herself. Complaining about certain conditions is one thing, but the only way to do really anything about it is to commit to entering into that power and hopefully she could come in as mayor as that chronology progresses.
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