Director: Mathieu Kassovitz.
Cast: Mathieu Kassovitz, Iabe Lapacas, Malik Zidi.
Running Time: 136 minutes.
Certificate: 15.
Synopsis: Set against the backdrop of the French presidential election campaign, REBELLION is a Guerrilla-styled docufilm which isolates and exposes a secret history from the depths of the Gossannah cave. Delivered from the perspective of one man bound by his duty to serve his nation, the film speaks retrospectively of an irascible voice of silenced injustice against oppression. It appears that you can silence a people, but you can’t stifle the echo of truths stored in the cavernous mines of libraries and electronic portals. You can close your eyes, but what the heart witnesses and the mind sees will play back time and time again in the dreams of individuals and the collective memory of future generations.
In REBELLION, Mathieu Kassovitz really proves his tremendous dedication, zeal and cinematic brilliance as writer, director and actor. He successfully adapts a strikingly powerful and audacious screenplay from the historical novel, ‘La morale et l’action‘ written by Captain Philippe Legorjus. Based on Legorjus’ factual account, Kassovitz seeks to inform and elucidate his audience about those events surrounding the political insurrection in New Caledonia during a definitive ten-day standoff between the local Kanaks and the French military forces during April-May 1988.
Through a medium of recollected memory and a gallery of photographs, Captain Philippe Legorjus’ (Mathieu Kassovitz) white everyman figure relays his human story, grappling with the shame and guilt born of his betrayal of a people whose freedom hinged upon his word. Shot exclusively from Legorjus’ viewpoint, Kassovitz reaches out and leads us through the mangroves and dense jungle paths of tangled and indiscernible choices. With thirty of France’s gendarmerie held captive in the sacred cave at Gossannah, Legorjus is deployed with his men as chief negotiator who must broker a deal in peace and salvage his compatriots. Kassovitz here relays an impossible situation where the betrayal and bloodshed of a people proves a foregone conclusion. France, no doubt, would gladly stifle reports of any such involvement in army brutality and the senseless slaughter of innocent nationals. As disseminated throughout LA HAINE, the situation is rarely black and white, but invariably coloured with human tragedy.
Just as Legorjus’ flashbacks awaken the voices of past experience, driving the brutalised body of the story and leaving a bloody trail of uncomfortable events to illuminate the screen, Kassovitz similarly reactivates the switch of politicised cinema. Employing similar methods of cinematography to LA HAINE and a linear approach in translating the foreboding temporal aspect of the film, we are held captive also to the inescapable, unfolding sequences which lurch towards the final glimpse of execution.
With the portentous roll and clatter of military drums, we witness the process through which the opening sequence played in reverse comes to fruition via a dramatic countdown device. Like the continuous rotation of the helicopter blades to the fan spinning above a motionless, tormented Legorjus, the hands of time keep pointing to his betrayal as the inevitable comes full circle. Kassovitz intends to tell these people’s story, to expose the truth and to condemn a corrupt government. Everything builds with a mounting suspension to this one climactic sequence whereupon a people’s entire culture, system of values, customs and beliefs is extinguished mercilessly by France’s unscrupulous military.
The triptych of values honoured by the French colours spitting hypocrisy and unfurling in the wind over the Kanak people reminds us of the equality, fraternity and liberty absent in France’s vicious foreign policy. These values are treated, however, in the unlikely friendship and fraternal alliance developed between GIGN officer Philippe Legorjus and separatist leader Alphonse Dianou (Iabe Lapacas). A poignant portrait of two men moulded by two polarised cultures surfaces and instructs the audience much about resolution of conflict and dialogue based on the common principles of trust, belief and a respect for humanity.
Kassovitz adeptly uses a system of jump cuts, top shots and jolting close-range camera techniques to facilitate a sense of confusion and proximity in both time and space to the Oevea hostage taking incident. We perceive a conflict between civilisations and ideologies, but also a conflict played out within the individual. Like an island, isolated and powerless, Kassovitz examines one man’s quest for truth, a last honest and natural refuge amidst the oceans of hypocrisy and lies which litter the political landscape. In doing so, Kassovitz creates a very special film which is perhaps emblematic of an entire generation desperate to excavate the truth and stand up for their beliefs. REBELLION is a monumental tour-de-force which provides an exhilarating and exceptional cinematic experience.
REBELLION was released in UK cinemas on April 19th.
