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Djan­go – first look review

12 Feb 2017

Words by Adam Lee Davies

Three men in formal wear playing musical instruments, including a double bass, clarinet, and acoustic guitar.
Three men in formal wear playing musical instruments, including a double bass, clarinet, and acoustic guitar.
A nim­ble-fin­gered movie biopic of the ace gui­tar pick­er who enter­tained the Nazis opens the 2017 Berlinale.

It’s Paris. 1943. Under Ger­man occu­pa­tion. Fun times, or at least for some. Swing-jazz gui­tarist Djan­go Rein­hardt may be of Romani descent – a peo­ple not much beloved by Herr Hitler – but his expres­sive, explo­sive bebop quin­tet are wow­ing the Nazi elite, as well as the well-heeled Frenchies, so he is all but untouch­able. But such priv­i­lege comes at a price, and when Rein­hardt is invit­ed to tour Ger­many and enter­tain the Deutsche troops, he dis­cov­ers a twinge of con­science that is locat­ed very near his sur­vival bone. Which way to jump?

Éti­enne Comar’s won­der­ful biopic traces Djan­go as he slow­ly realis­es that art is a com­mod­i­ty, that no man is an island and cir­cum­stances rule men; men do not rule cir­cum­stances. Which all makes Djan­go sound a lit­tle bleak. It is, how­ev­er, a stone delight. Every biopic lives and dies by its lead per­former (cf: Val Kilmer in The Doors) and, here gold is uncovered.

Look­ing every inch the Gal­lic War­ren Oates (just imag­ine!), Reda Kateb is tru­ly hyp­not­ic as the jazz-hand­ed mae­stro. He is no more or less than a human per­son: no huge emo­tion­al land­slides, no sail-swag­ging real­i­sa­tions, no Vase­line-lensed moments of movie clar­i­ty. Just a man who is forced to grow up a lit­tle as a result of history’s cru­el erup­tions. He may not even know that a change has tak­en place, but we do.

It’s not all plain sail­ing. The first half of the film is a mite bag­gy, and a Rififi/​Mission: Impos­si­ble caper toward the end stretch­es creduli­ty a lit­tle. But the music – over­seen by Nick Cave’s chief Bad Seed, War­ren Ellis – is entranc­ing, the per­for­mances nice­ly con­tained and the scenes where Djan­go recon­nects with his extend­ed gyp­sy fam­i­ly are not (whol­ly) giv­en over to bull­shit movie romanticism.

War­ren Oates would love this film – which is the best review one could give.

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