Between Two Worlds – first-look review

There’s a fun­ny ear­ly episode of The Simp­sons when method actor and lat­ter-day fas­cism apol­o­gist James Woods gets a job at the Kwik-E-Mart as a way to help him immerse him­self in a new film role. Emmanuel Carrère’s Between Two Worlds, based on Flo­rence Aube­nas 2010 vol­ume of reportage, ​‘Le Quai de Ouistre­ham’, is not a mil­lion miles away from this set-up, as author Mar­i­anne (Juli­ette Binoche) detach­es her­self from fam­i­ly, friends and peers, decamps to the des­o­late port town of Caen and envelops her­self in her new sub­ject: the world of low-wage cleaners.

Unlike James Woods, Mar­i­anne has decid­ed that her in with this com­mu­ni­ty should not be as an edu­cat­ed, bour­geois out­sider look­ing to objec­tive­ly mon­i­tor and doc­u­ment this dis­re­gard­ed and much-maligned world. Instead, she decides to secret­ly become a part of it, get her hands (very) dirty and learn by doing. Yes, she is an inter­lop­er in a place to which she doesn’t belong, but she firm­ly believes this is the most rig­or­ous and eth­i­cal­ly sound way to achieve her desired goals. What could pos­si­bly go wrong?

Carrère’s intrigu­ing and sen­si­tive dra­ma con­tains a nice line in earnest auto-cri­tique, as Marianne’s jour­ney and the ques­tions she asks of her­self are the same as any well-heeled film­mak­er who choos­es to point their cam­era across the class divide. What right do artists have when it comes to telling the sto­ries of those unseen throngs liv­ing on the periph­ery of soci­ety? Should these peo­ple not be empow­ered to tell their own sto­ries? And if so, would peo­ple lis­ten to them?

Binoche keeps things admirably low-key in the lead, sport­ing dowdy dis­count leisurewear and hair tied back in a bor­rowed scrunchy. Despite the act that she puts on, the empa­thy she extends towards her cohorts is returned, and though this is very much a por­trait of hard­scrab­ble lives, it is one which is open to cap­tur­ing both the highs along with the lows. Though the film draws in many char­ac­ters, includ­ing one charm­ing­ly insis­tent guy who, from their first inter­ac­tion, is keen to ensnare Mar­i­anne in a rela­tion­ship, it soon trains its focus on Christèle (Hélène Lam­bert), seen in the open­ing shot tramp­ing towards the job cen­tre with a bone to pick with someone.

Despite the intro­duc­tion, Christèle doesn’t end up being a ball of coiled rage. Her dogged endurance and ded­i­ca­tion to the upkeep of her three pre-teen sons frames her as woman whose poten­tial is not being met by a jobs mar­ket in which peo­ple seem to be sluiced into the ser­vice sec­tor to be exploit­ed for no pay. Mar­i­ane is aware that the fond rela­tion­ship she builds with Christèle is ephemer­al and that the mask will soon have to slip for her to be able to do her job, and it’s all the more upset­ting for her because the bond she has cul­ti­vat­ed does seem so genuine.

The final boss lev­el of our dubi­ous heroine’s tra­vails takes us to the Caen-Port­st­mouth fer­ry, whose 150-plus cab­ins require toi­lets scrubbed and beds turned down, in a tiny turn­around win­dow, and all for a pit­tance. It’s here where the film sounds its only duff note (though it is a big one) as the juicy ques­tion of when and how Mar­i­ane will reveal her true iden­ti­ty is dealt with in a man­ner that is at best unsat­is­fac­to­ry, and at worst down­right lazy. Yet despite this late-game gaff, the film comes good and rounds off on a note of cool ambiva­lence rather than opt­ing for the obvi­ous fiery denounce­ment of mid­dle-class treach­ery (cf Ken Loach).

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