Rebellion (2011)
L’ordre et la morale
Directed by: Matthieu Kassovitz
1988, New Caledonia, a series of islands in the South Pacific that are legally part of France. A group of indigenous Kanaks has stormed a police station on one of the islands, killing four gendarmes and taking twenty hostage. A team of elite GIGN police, led by specialist negotiator Capitaine Legorjus, flies to the islands but, by the time they arrive, the mission has been given to the army who have orders to end the uprising quickly, using any means – the French presidential elections are underway, and neither candidate can afford to look weak.
We are in no doubt that this story, which is based on real events, will finish badly – the movie opens with a nightmarish vision of the end of a battle – but Rebellion then winds back to show us how and why, and it does so with considerable style.
The movie’s sympathies are undoubtedly with the Kanak people, and with the Capitaine and his team. But director Kassovitz also manages to see things from the point of view of others – even the army general gets an opportunity to articulate his perspective on the nature and responsibilities of military service. Only the politicians (the two unseen presidential candidates, and particularly the government minister dispatched to the islands) come across as cynical and driven by self-interest.
Kassovitz, who also stars as Legorjus, takes a limited budget and works wonders. This movie feels big in a way that, for example, most current British films do not. It is also exciting and innovative – standout scenes include the way one of the Kanak policemen describes to Legorjus how the initial raid took place, placing himself and the captain in the middle of the action, and the apocalyptic arrival of the first assault helicopter at the rebels’ camp during the final act. And it disproves Dave Barry’s old saw about the quality of a movie being inversely proportional to the number of helicopters it contains (even if these ones are are largely CGI confections). Outstanding.
