Case départ by Lionel Steketee, et al. (review)

STEKETEE, LIONEL, FABRICE ÉBOUÉ, et THOMAS N’GIJOL, réal. Case départ. Int. Fabrice Éboué, Thomas N’Gijol, Stefi Celma, Eriq Ebouaney. Légende, 2011. In their first film, which they directed, starred in, and wrote the script for, Fabrice Eboué and Thomas N’Gijol have created a surprising box office smash that filled over 500,000 seats in the first week of its French release. Joël and Régis, estranged half-brothers, run into each other in an airport in the Antilles where they have come to see a dying father neither of them really knew. The father has had many children with women the world over, hence the dark-skinned Joël and the light-skinned Régis. The brothers are caricatured opposites. Released from prison after serving time for stealing an old woman’s purse, Joël lives with his mother and a nine-year-old daughter he tries to get money from when he is caught without a ticket by bus controllers. Régis is an assistant to the mayor; married to a white woman and also the father of a nine-year-old daughter, he is fully “integrated,” meaning he laughs at the mayor’s racist jokes and identifies as Normand. Joël blames racism for all his woes, particularly his joblessness, but he never tries to find work. Régis believes immigrants are the cause of housing problems and rising crime. Their dying father tells them they will inherit a “great treasure”; to their disappointment , it turns out to be the original document granting freedom to their ancestors. They derisively tear the paper up under the disapproving eye of an old aunt who better appreciates the value of their freedom than Régis and Joël do. To teach them a lesson, she casts a spell on them, sending them back to 1780 where they find themselves stripped down to their designer underwear and auctioned off in an Antillean slave market, two for the price of one. On the plantation, Joël cuts cane, while Régis is retained as a servant in the master’s house. The film unfolds as a series of jokes based on the stupefying racism of the white colonists, racial tensions between light- and dark-skinned blacks, and the ideologically opposite poles of identity politics (resistant vs. integrationist) each brother occupies in today’s France. Scenes of corporal punishment and slave ship horrors are arguably sensitively represented, but they always provide the opportunity for another joke, often involving penis size, homosexuality, or body odor. When the brothers finally meet up with the old aunt who cast the spell on them, she tells them they must join forces to right a wrong. They interpret this to mean they are to bring their enslaved ancestors Isidore and Rosalie together so they can procreate , since they believe, mistakenly, that Isidore is homosexual. In the meantime, they save the master’s little boy (named Victor in a nod to Victor Schœlcher) from drowning, who then asks his father to free the brothers. They request that Rosalie and Isidore be freed in their place; with the manumission papers restored to their ancestors’ hands, the brothers can return to the present. Joël gets a job in construction , and Régis confronts the mayor’s racism. The final scene is a reunion between the brothers and their families, with the brothers leaping up to prevent their quarreling daughters from destroying the document again. Insofar as Case départ recalls other comedies like Les visiteurs and Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis, its box office success in France makes sense. As one of the first French feature films to address slavery, the fact that it is a comedy has generated heated, often angry debate on both sides of the Atlantic. Many viewers complain they were manipulated into laughing about something they do not find at all funny: the crime against humanity that is slavery. Wherever you find yourself in Reviews 937 this debate, the film is worth seeing because it provokes discussion about race, which clearly still matters. Union College (NY) Michelle Chilcoat ZEM, ROSCHDY, réal. Omar m’a tuer. Int. Sami Bouajila...