Hafenkino Open Air: Les Misérables

To mark the Olympics, Hafenkino Open Air is once again celebrating the three greatest Paris films of recent years: 26.07. Gagarine 27.07. Where the Sun Rises in Paris 10.08. Les Miserables

"Focusing on a "social hotspot" can quickly slip into cliché or become kitsch. Ladi Ly elegantly avoids both traps by taking his characters and their conflicts seriously," writes Maria Wiesner for kino-zeit. And that sums up the film's great strength: Ladi Ly himself grew up in the Parisian suburb of Monfermeil and nothing about this film seems contrived, exaggerated or melodramatic.

Stephane has joined the crime-fighting unit of Monfermeil, the place where Victor Hugo set his novel Les Misérables in 1862. Together with Stephane's new colleagues Chris and Gwada - both experienced members of the unit - Stephane quickly notices the tensions between the local gangs and the local police. His colleagues, meanwhile, have found their own unconventional way of dealing with the clans: They regularly overstep the boundaries of what is legal and still consider themselves to be in the right. When the policemen want to make a brutal arrest, they are filmed by a child with a drone and their actions trigger an avalanche of anger and hatred.

Les Misérables. Ladj Ly, France 2019, 115 min., from 16 years, OmU

Admission 8.15 p.m., movie starts after dark (sunset 8.54 p.m.). Admission in advance and at the Box Office 10 euros.