Four years after “Les Misérables”, a multi-award winning shock film, director Ladj Ly changes the tone, but not the setting: in “Bâtiment 5″ [“Edifício 5”, em tradução literal], evokes the difficulties of urban renewal and the twists and turns of local politics in the suburbs. The 2019 film told the story of a man who arrived to join the Montfermeil Anti-Crime Brigade (BAC), on the outskirts of Paris, and soon found himself Discover the tensions between the different local gangs. During an arrest, a drone filmed all the team's actions and gestures, the trigger to explode the latent tension. More classic in appearance, less driven by urgency, “Bâtiment 5”, which arrives in French cinemas on Wednesday, is interested in the scourge of degraded condominiums, these housing units in popular neighborhoods where modest families end up trapped in a vicious circle between the explosion of complaints and the degradation of buildings. Decades after purchasing their apartments, people found themselves expropriated by the State and relocated in public housing. “A beautiful organized fraud” denounces Ladj Ly, who knows the problem having grown up in Clichy/Montfermeil (Seine-Saint-Denis), which was one of the largest vertical slums.”Our parents bought them all, we were all owners! They told us: to be integrated you have to be an owner. They just paid off the credit with 15% interest, we made them pay three times for the apartment, which was a consummate fraud; for 20 years, then being expropriated and ending up as tenants”, he testifies. ” data-title=”After the triumph with the shock film “Les Misérables”, director Ladj Ly returns to the suburbs of Paris – SAPO Mag”> The film portrays the confrontation between two newcomers to local politics, a pediatrician (Alexis Manenti) who accepts to become mayor after the death of the incumbent and will sink into authoritarianism, and a young woman, Haby (Anta Diaw), outraged by the injustice done to the expropriated families and who will launch a campaign against the municipality after discovering the new requalification plan for his neighborhood which involves the demolition of “Building 5”, the building where he grew up. After having collaborated on the script for two films by his closest friends, (“Athena”, by Romain Gavras, for Netflix, and “Le Jeune Imam” [“O jovem imam””] by Kim Chapiron), Ladj Ly reunites with much of his “Les Misérables” team and much greater resources. The reward of success. “We found a family with whom we lived the best moments”, says actor Alexis Manenti. “We arrived after 'Les Miserables', we know we are expected”, he notes. Just like this film, which attracted a 2.1 millions of spectators and collected 4 Césars (the “French Oscar), including Best Film, “Bâtiment 5” has an almost documentary value, as Ladj Ly knows these places in Seine-Saint-Denis like few filmmakers and continues to work with the people of the neighborhood where he grew up.
Premonitory scene
Ladj Ly in the center with his accomplices: Alexis Manenti and Anta Diaw” data-title=”After the triumph with the shock film “Les Miserables”, director Ladj Ly returns to the suburbs of Paris – SAPO Mag”> Ladj Ly in the center center with his accomplice actors: Alexis Manenti and Anta Diaw “In the film we speak about ten languages, Bambara, Fulani, Soninké, Syrian, English, French! The idea is this richness. That's what France is today, a mixture of traditions, we must pay homage to these cultures” without falling into clichés, emphasizes the 45-year-old director, who is at the center of the Kourtrajmé collective, which for years has helped train film professionals from the suburbs of Paris, and who is close to the actor Vincent Cassel or by filmmaker Mathieu Kassovitz, launched to fame with “Hate” (1995), another controversial film about the suburban neighborhoods of Paris. After the riots that shook France following the death of Nahel by a police officer in June, “Bâtiment 5″ is eagerly awaited. It brings a message about the involvement of young people in the neighborhoods in politics. And it impresses with a scene that seems premonitory, where the bourgeois residence of the mayor is invaded by a desperate resident. “It is the only fictional scene in the film”, and it was filmed before the attack in early July with a car on the house of Vincent Jeanbrun, mayor of L'Haÿ-les-Roses (Val-de-Marne), during the intense phase of the riots, explains Ladj Ly.”People are surprised , but you can tell when things are going to get worse. At a certain point, anger takes over when that happens”, he observes.”Bâtiment 5″ has not yet been announced for release in Portugal.
