So, what's going on?
That is a pertinent question, and one that is hard to answer in any contained manner when it comes to Gavras' debut. The hirsute director claimed that he wanted to make a feature about two people who had run away from everything and in this he has succeeded. Whether his film succeeds as a 'romantic comedy' as he claimed at the Edinburgh Festival is open to more debate however.
Set in an extremely bleak and depressingly visualised version of France, isolated teenager Remy (Olivier Barthelemy) is giving up hope. Ostracised by peers as a 'faggot' and taunted for his fiery red hair, even his family provides no comfort; indeed, his only solace seems to come from World of Warcraft sessions with his online 'girlfriend' Gaelle, whom he has never actually met.
Fate introduces him to a racist, volatile councellor Patrick caught in the mire of midlife ennui, and together, brought together through both their fiery follicles and need to scream at the world embark on a nihilistic and increasingly dangerous journey of discovery together.
Remy is desperate to discover acceptance, and elects to start a revolution for his people in ginger-friendly Ireland, while Patrick is rediscovering and exploring a darkness in himself through his young protege, creating a vicarious monster in the process.
Bait and Switch Tone
Our Day Will Come is initially a pretty funny film despite its bleakness, and its tone takes on a big switch over half way through. The concept of redheads starting a revolution, which had seemed more pronounced from the trailer, is really only a footnote in the film itself; there is an overwhelming hopelessness to Gavras' vision throughout.
A scene where Cassel masturbates in a hotel jacuzzi in front of a frightened couple under the duress of Remy's well aimed crossbow does not elicit the titers that have come before, and Patrick's misogyny becomes fully exposed (in more ways than one) towards the film's close.
The film is shot through with the same bleak palate as the director's music videos, and compositions of smoking industrial sites, factories and barren roads add a distinctively apocalyptic feel.
The Verdict
By the end, Our Day Will Come is less a film about 'la haine' than one might think, and it certainly has something to say. Thematically it resembles an angry Gallic Burgess-lite rhetoric of aimless youth, bullying and isolation. Where it fails is in its uneven shifts between off-kilter comedy and dark, sombre allegory. For any admirers of either Gavras or Cassel however, it is definitely worth watching - they would have you make your own mind up.
Ewen Hosie - I'm a Scot who takes pleasure from heavy typing sounds, and thus writing is an appropriate catalyst with which to indulge in this obscure ...
Join the Conversation