LES PRINCES (THE PRINCES)
France, 1983, 100 minutes, Colour.
Gerard Damon, Muse Dalbray.
Directed by Tony Gatlif.
The Princes is an engaging French film written and directed by Tony Gatlif, a blend of documentary and feature about French gypsies.
The film focuses on a family, their life in a city, their trying, to survive - as well as the politics within the family and the clan. While the film has an interesting narrative, portraying the characters and their interactions well, the film also gives a glimpse of gypsies coping with their heritage and trying to survive in contemporary society.
1. An interesting and informative film about gypsies? Entertaining?
2. The atmosphere of the French town, the gypsies and their lifestyle, the semi-derelict tenement, jobs? The hone, the school, the road? An authentic atmosphere? The musical score and gypsy themes?
3. The title and the focus on the gypsies, their conception of themselves, their long heritage, seeing themselves as royalty? Authority within the gypsy clan?
4. The focus on Nara and his family? The gypsy background, his elderly mother, Zorka? Odd jobs, scrap metal on a building site? His reaction to his wife and her being on the pill? His wanting to have a large family? The gypsy image of the large family? His continued hostility towards his wife, especially when she wanted to see the daughter? His own affair with the barmaid? The attack of the three brothers? Their believing, in Nara's right to exclude her, their failure to win him over? His friendship with Petiton, the burglary plan, his refusal, the attack by Petiton and the others, his revenge? His attitude towards Zorka and her studies, the encounter with the husband of the teacher? The eviction? The gypsy camp, the shack, the police pursuing them? The leading of the group to find the lawyer? The hopes from the American Journalist? Nara's hostility towards the journalist? Sexual harassment? stealing? The meal, overeating, her collapse? Miralda and her following the group, the brothers? The reconciliation? A portrait of a gypsy man?
5. Miralda and her decisions, the pill, her being thrown out, wanting to see her daughter, the intervention of the brothers and their failure, her continuing to follow the family, the final reconciliation?
6. The grandmother, destitution, living with the family, love for her son and granddaughter? The poverty? her determination? Her going with the group to the lawyer, to the Journalist? her gypsy ways, begging, fortune-telling?
Hunger and the lavish meal, overeating?
7. The younger generation: Zorina, living in the tenement, deprived of her mother, her skills at school, the clash between her father and the husband of the teacher, her being withdrawn, on the road, in the camps? Destitute?
8. The police and their attitudes towards the gypsies, moving them on? Officials and their attitudes?
9. The lawyer, the attempted help, legal rights? The American journalist? The letter from the grandmother? Her arrival, the questions and their patronising tone, Nara's reaction, her leaving angrily?
10. A glimpse of a people? An old way of life? Outcasts from society? Isolated in their own community? Finding a place in modern society?
