La mélodie Directed by Rachid Hami
La mélodie
Director: Rachid Hami
Cast: Kad Merad, Samir Guesmi, Alfred Renely, Jean-Luc Vincent, Tatiana Rojo, Slimane Dazi, Mathieu Spinosi, Zakaria-Tayeb Lazab, Youssouf Gueye, Mouctar Diawara, Shirel Nataf, Anaïs Meiringer, Amine Chir, Claudine Vinasithamby, Idaya Haddouche
Year: 2017
Country: France
Author Review: Roberto Matteucci
"They are also rascals."
Freud did not have a good relationship with music: "... the meaning of a artwork gives me a stronger attraction than its formal and technical qualities ...
...
... for music, I'm almost incapable of enjoyment. A rationalistic or perhaps analytical disposition is opposed to me and I cannot be moved without knowing why and from what. " (1)
It was not a matter of taste, he simply could not psychoanalyze it. Scientifically he could be right. It is difficult to assign a material or logical meaning to the music or to glimpse any sign of the Oedipus complex.
If the direct interpretation is impossible, it is possible to psychoanalyze and symbolize the relationship between people and music. A big literature exists on this loving topic.
A very important and exciting sub-category is the correspondence between music and adolescents. For young people, music constitutes the mean for a human formation, useful for growth and for awareness.
The French cinema are certainly specialized on this subject. Music and young people are present in many films of recent times, starting with Les choristes - The Chorus with Kad Merad, or with the touched success of La Famille Bélier. I remember Le dernier coup de marteau by director Alix Delaporte a French film presented in 2014 at the Venice Film Festival,
In 2017 at the 74th Venice Film Festival, La mélodie by director Rachid Hami was presented about the maturation of some boys depends on violin.
It is the violin, in fact, the protagonist of the first scene. We see it in the close-up in the subway, in a crowded street and finally in a school.
Simon - played by Kad Merad - is a mature music professor. He has an unhappy past, with many problems. His face expresses disillusionment, pessimism, cynicism.
He accept, probably forced and against will, a job in a middle school. His pupils resemble the boys presented with so much realism by the director Laurent Cantet in the famous film The Class - Entre les murs, which first has shown the cultural diversity in today's French schools.
With fast, quick editing, we observe the students, the faces are similar to those of many teenagers, even if they come from many parts of the world.
Behind every face, there is a complicated story, with so many emotional, social and economic fragility.
And obviously, all the personal, family, social tensions meet in that casual combination that is the school, where many young people without any maturity and education face and clash: "they do not concentrate more than thirty seconds.
In the first part, the cultural debate is between the old, depressed teacher and many immature students. They live in own imaginary world: they laugh at idiots' jokes and use the violin bow as a sword. They are not justifiable, as it is inexcusable the anger against them by Simon.
Something changes with the advent of music: in the close-up, the boys with a marvelled look, observe the professor while he is playing delightfully. The passion is perceived, in some of them comes the need to improve their future, so they start to study music.
Arnold emerges among the boys. He lives only with his mother, who supports him with love and example. Arnold wants to play, he feels it inside himself. He wants a place to concentrate, where he can study in peace.
He goes to play on the roof of the building where he lives. There is snow, it is cold but the panorama is beautiful. His conduct is followed by other companions. They all find themselves on the roof, first, they joke, then they learn the importance of group study.
In the second part, parents get important because they see the commitment of the students. The boys are very different but the adults are more disparate. But the teacher has understood how to behave with them, how to be appreciated; on his face, the smile is back. Simon is personally committed to making the children esteem by fathers and mothers.
He has changed his method and the violin becomes important in the framing.
Success is deserved and the metaphor is prestigious. The favourable result has depended on everyone, from the school - represented by Farid - from the professor capable of regaining confidence in his life and sending positive messages to the students. Obviously, the students who have found a purpose, a goal in their life. With them there are parents, they have defended their children rather than snubbing their passions; the metaphor: only together they can win.
The idea of the subject is common and already seen. It is the greatest problem faced by the director, obliged to defend the similarities of La mélodie. And indeed, during the press conference at the Venice Film Festival, a journalist identified the problem. She was skilled, instead of asking him if there were any obvious bonds among The Class and Whiplash, she asked, slyly, if he had seen both films.
Rachid Hami's answer was clever, specifying the differences exactly. "The Class has a more school-based approach, centred on the school ... while La mélodie is the film about music in the school environment. ...
The mélodie is very different from the other two, La mélodie is a bit of a mix between The class but there is also a rather fantastic dimension in the film, with characters that go beyond their own reality. " (2)
Laurent Cantet did not invent the multiracial classes, it is a fact, an incontrovertible reality.
Rachid Hami uses an imaginary tone, both because the boys represent our times - for example, they try to study violin by watching tutorials on youtube - or because symbolically they desire to succeed by starting from a high building, by the roof they can dominate all the city.
The director uses the close-up to stay on the students, on the parents, often turning the camera to impress many voices. The emotion of music is the other way used with skill by the director. Accept the challenge of the music but he can check. Music does not stop even when the scene is ended and the new one starts. Music must always remain dominant even director changes topic.
(1) Sigmund Freud, Il Mosé di Michelangelo, Bollati Boringhieri, Torino, I edizione 1976, ristampa Aprile 2004
