Immigrant Song

Again, the figure of the immigrant. In this film, the immigrant
begins in Africa, in Senegal, in Dakar—a poor city with too much
sun, dirty buildings, and dusty roads. Where does this African want to
go? To Paris, a city with lots of clean buildings and paved boulevards.
Paris is built; Dakar is underbuilt. Paris is a functional machine;
Dakar is a dysfunctional machine. The African has enjoyed the sexual
pleasures of a beautiful tourist, and he has also received a postcard
from Paris—it looks like his African friend/brother is enjoying
life in the City of Lights. He has no choice. He has to leave Dakar,
cross the desert on a rickety truck, and then face the final challenge:
the Strait of Gibraltar. “See over there,” the smuggler tells him.
“When the fog rises, you can see Europe.”

Though the immigrant has a minor role in Paris—he appears
on the screen only four or five times—his story brings meaning,
substance, and even the condition of cinema to the other characters.
But before I explain what it is about the immigrant’s situation that
gives him the power of cinema—and also share with you a small
part of a conversation I had with the star of the
film, Juliette Binoche—I must make a confession:
Paris is not a great work of art. It is very basic, and its pleasures
are more touristic than voyeuristic. You will not learn anything new
about Paris from Paris; you will, however, be entertained and leave the
theater with that amused mood you get from the films in the middle
period of Woody Allen’s career.

Back to the immigrant. He is about to cross the
Strait of Gibraltar. Europe is in the fog. He pulls out a cell
phone (this is a 21st-century immigrant) and calls the beautiful
Parisian he fucked in Dakar. She is a model and is about to mount a
catwalk. Cameras flash around her. This is the heart of the fashion
industry. The immigrant tells her that he is on his way to her. He will
see her in Paris. But first he has to cross the dangerous and stormy
waters of the Strait of Gibraltar. This is the power of the immigrant:
He always has a goal. In the French movie Welcome, for example, the
immigrant, a young Iraqi teenager, has a goal: to swim across the
English Channel and reach the shores of the island where the love of
his life and his future lie. Any screenwriter will tell you again and
again that a great film needs a subject with one goal. This goes for
Hollywood and art-house films. Out of all of the possible situations of
the world of our moment, the globalizing world, none has a clearer goal
than the situation of an immigrant. Their desire is not here, but
always over there, across the border.

“When the idea of the film was explained to me, the director
[Cédric Klapisch] asked what role would I like to play. And, you
know, I could make up this role,” said Juliette Binoche over the phone.
She was in New York City to promote her new book about the directors
she has worked with. “I decided I wanted to play a social worker, a
person who worked with people. I also wanted to be a mother with five
kids from five different men, and the men be of different colors, so
the kids have different colors, like the city of Paris. The director
liked the idea, but he only gave me two kids and not five.” Binoche’s
instincts were right: It’s best, or more meaningful, to play Paris not
as a whore but as a mother whose bed has been open to many men from
many different places. But as strong as her instincts are, they are not
enough to drive the narrative motor of a film. A mother of Paris has no
real goals.

Nor do the other characters in this film: Pierre (Romain Duris) is a
cabaret dancer suffering from a fatal illness; Roland Verneuil (Fabrice
Luchini) is professor of history whose wolfish lust is focused on one
of his students, Laetitia (the slender Mélanie Laurent);
Philippe Verneuil (François Cluzet) is an architect in the
middle of a big project; and, finally, Jean (Albert Dupontel) is a
stallholder at a market. But put these characters in the context (or
the aura) of the immigrant’s goal and suddenly they come to mean the
city itself: Pierre? He is all about the excellent health-care system
Parisians enjoy. Roland? He is all about the excellent education system
Parisians have access to. Philippe? He is all about the abundant
housing the city has for its inhabitants. Jean? He is all about the
menial jobs the city has for those who need to work. To get to these
things, the immigrant must cross the stormy waters of the Strait of
Gibraltar.