État des lieux (1995)

The suburbs are the lungs of Paris. Every morning, thousands of workers leave the suburbs for the capital, but a portion of the suburban population refuses to follow this pattern. Pierre Céphas is one of them. He works in a factory, hangs around outside his apartment building, and trains at the neighborhood boxing club. Every day, he faces the zeal of the police, the harshness of working life, and the ever-present petty bosses. To forget this world, which is as violent as it is dangerous, he finds solace with his family and in the company of a few friends. A realistic character, he is fully aware of his social position. État des lieux is a social chronicle, sometimes funny, sometimes caustic or cynical, recounting the joys and setbacks of a French citizen. The film’s message is explicitly Marxist. Through the speeches of several characters, including the protagonist, and also through the music video by rapper Base Enemy, which forms one of the film’s sequences, it calls on the proletariat to rise up.