We Have a Situation Here: Coming After May 1968 With Olivier Assayas

Olivier Assayas’ ‘Something in the Air’ is a richly evocative film that draws on his own experiences to present the radical trajectories of youth in France whose engagement dates from the years immediately following May 1968. This essay explores the relation between Assayas’ background and his experience of radical change and in particular his exposure to the cinema of commitment in the 1968 years and his embrace of situationist thought which he presents in the film. Assayas is not a contemporary radical saying what was then could be now. On the contrary, he wants to capture the years of his youth in such a way as to say "that’s history," not just for him but for the youth of today as well.