It is difficult to refrain from the use of hyperbole when a film the likes of 35 Shots of Rum comes along. Having taken in a screening of a genuinely great piece of cinema, I will attempt to keep the gushing to a minimum. Put briefly, 35 Shots of Rum is an absolute marvel. It’s the most striking piece of cinema I have seen this year theatrically.

The story of 35 Shots of Rum is rather fleeting, if not secondary to the actual unravelling of events. Alex Descas plays Lionel, an overbearing single father. Lionel’s daughter Josephine, portrayed by Mati Diop in her first acting performance, is a university aged young woman, on the verge of flying the coop yet still has a very strong sense of responsibility towards her father. Alongside their neighbours Gabrielle (Nicole Dogue) and Noe (Gregoire Colin) they form a dysfunctional family unit of sorts. While events do cross their paths, with such themes as suicide, soul searching and responsibility approached, the focus of the piece is the interplay between the characters, and their development and interpersonal situation. Its a very slow moving piece, where very little is revealed, yet much is made apparent. Its perfectly structured and realised filmmaking, precise to a tee, and wholly impressive as a result.

35 Shots of Rum is very much a character based drama, and as such the performances are key to its success. Alex Descas is the centerpiece of the “family” and the center of the story. The subtlety with which he plays Lionel, an aging, still grieving widower, astounds, and is complemented perfectly with a wonderful assured performance from newcomer Diop. With able support from Dogue and Colin, as the sibling/parent/love interest to the two main characters, 35 Shots of Rum feels like a complete and full bodied piece of film, at least in terms of where the intention lay in the characters.

Director Claire Denis started out in formidable company. As a second unit director she worked alongside the likes of Wim Wenders, Jim Jarmusch and Dusan Makavejev, so to say that she learned from the best would hardly be hyperbolic. 35 Shots of Rum is my first Denis picture, so as to how indicative of her oeuvre it actually is I’m not sure, but to draw comparisons to Wenders wouldn’t be unfair. The slow paced, almost leisurely nature of the piece proved a refreshing alternative to the earlier screening of Brüno that I took in, and indeed the fact that the previous film downright exhausted suggests a quality in 35 Shots of Rum in that it kept me awake for the running time! The coincidental comparison that this double bill brings up is very interesting, in that it exposes the major difference between that which entertains, and that which is genuinely great. I hold no great shame in admitting that Sacha Baron Cohen’s film entertained hugely, and while it may have exposed, or at least provoked a side of American culture out into the open it didn’t feel as though what was on screen was of a great and lasting quality. Sure its funny, but in five years time will it still inspire? 35 Shots of Rum is quite the opposite. While the film may not play for scandal, or cheap shocks, the deep rooted emotional backbone reveals itself slowly, and provides the viewer with a very close and effective experience.

There is a scene wherein each of the four main characters take it in turn to dance with one another in a closed cafe, after a car breakdown scuppers their intended plans for the night. As each of the protagonists take to the dance floor, to the unexpected sound of The Commodores Nightshift, the entire film reaches an emotional cruxes point, in what is thus far the single most perfect piece of cinema that I have seen this year (apologies for ignoring my own ban on hyperbole!). Everything comes together, yet all without a single line of dialogue. Lionel passes over his daughter Joanna to Noe, who in turn rejects his advances before a similar fate befalls the relationship of Lionel and Gabrielle. This single scene practically seals the fate of the four characters and gives the viewer a hint of their eventual destiny, and actually comes instead of a clear summation at the end of the film.

Visually the film is very rich. The tracks of the Metro lines that mark Lionel’s place of work become almost patterned with their repetition, and the bold focus on faces reminds heavily of Bruno Dumont’s La Vie De Jesus, which itself lends heavily from Stanley Kubrick. I guess it comes down to that use of patterns and semblance, an act which Kubrick was arguably the master of. The lines of the apartment blocks fare similarly, with the internal corridors and the way in which such buildings handle space beingg utitilised heavily to convey a sense of confinement that ties into the characteristics of each character, and the way in which each one feel bound that particular building.

35 Shots of Rum focusses on the inhabitants of Paris barely seen on cinema screens. These aren’t the whimsical creations of Jean-Pierre Jeunet, or the quirky characters of Godard. They aren’t even the borderline fantastical creations of Francois Truffaut. They are real people, the sort of people that pass you by heading to the often (cinematically) avoided suburbs of the city. In fact, the closest we come to a typical modern French film character comes in the shape of Ruben, a potential but ultimately spurned love interest for Joanna. In a way, the politically conscious and trendy looking young guy is the sort of character that an audience would expect a film to be set around, so by rejecting this thematically onscreen as well as within the boundaries of French Cinema culture Denis spells out her intention. Its also no coincidence that Joanna passes right by a protest march, something synonymous to many alongside French cinema. The rich and “real” world of 35 Shots of Rum represents something else. There are no Amelie’s, no Antoine Doinel’s in this world, but simply the universal folk that are seen all over the world.