DJANGO


France, 2017, 115 minutes, Colour.
Reda Kateb, Cecile de France.
Directed by Etienne Comar.


As audiences go in to see Django, they will have different expectations. Jazz aficionados will be looking forward to the music, Django Reinhardt’s compositions, the range of concerts and performances. They will not be disappointed – and may be surprised but will welcome the Requiem for Deceased Gypsies at the end of the film.

Some audiences may have a vague idea that Jan go Reinhardt was a jazz musician – and that Woody Allen liked his music and incorporated aspects of music and plot into his Sweet and Low down. , They may be in for a surprise.

In fact, the film takes place only during 1943 in occupied Paris, life seeming to go on as normal despite the presence of the Germans and their control.

The tone is set powerfully in an opening prologue, set in a forest, where an old blind gypsy with a powerful voice makes such an impact with his singing. It is a gypsy camp. A child goes foraging in the forest, German soldiers approach and shoot. Django later reminisces that this old gypsy had been a huge influence on him.

By this time in his career, some mention of it in the screenplay, Django Reinhardt had been recording since 1928, successfully all during the 1930s, playing with all kinds of international greats. But now, he and his wife are trapped in Paris with the German authorities pressurising him to go on a tour of concerts in Germany and Berlin to build up the morale of the troops. He says he is a musician and not a politician. However, a woman from his past, Louise (Cecile de France) urges him to be wary. Also, Django’s wife is pregnant.

The concert for the Parisian audience and the Germans is an extraordinary success, the audience responding to the beat and becoming fully alive as they listen, sway, applaud. As it turns out, this is not what the Germans were expecting or wanting. The German officials seem rather puritanical in their attitude towards the music – a warning not to play a wrong note, which means avoid swing, the blues, and too much improvising on the jazz, and no dancing.

The group that Django plays with have mixed feelings. But, on the advice of Louise, Django, his wife and his extraordinarily tough mother all go to the Swiss border with the intention of crossing over, helped by the Resistance.

While waiting in the town, Django plays in the bar, goes fishing, his hobby, and meets the parish priest who invites him to the church, despite Django’s professing that he did not believe, to play the organ and compose.

The Germans track Django down and order him to play a concert in a local mansion. Louise again appears, in company with German officers and encourages him to play. The audience at the Château respond exuberantly to the music and so it is stopped by an officer.

The film shows the hostility of the Nazis to the Gypsies, a flamethrower destroying the camp at the end, while Django trudges through the snow towards Switzerland.

Then, suddenly, it is May 1945, peace and Django conducting his Requiem for the Deceased Gypsies.

In many ways, classical storytelling but, more importantly, a tribute Dkango Reinhardt and his music.


1. An entertaining portrait of Django Reinhardt?


2. Audience familiarity with him, his music, his successful career, his working with so many musicians from the US and Europe? His life, family? The World War II experience?

3. 1943, sets and decor, costumes and the atmosphere of the time?

4. The opening with the Gypsy camp, the forest, the soldiers? The city of Paris, occupied? The concert? Homes? The contrast with the Swiss border, the lake, the church, the inn, the mansion, the mountains? The final concert?

5. The musical score, Django’s compositions, jazz, the requiem for the Deceased Gypsies? The original score by Warren Ellis?

6. The prologue, the music, the old gypsy, the power of his singing, playing, his blindness? Django remembering his debt to him? The boy? The pursuit in the forest, shots, the old man being shot in the head? The impact of the audience?

7. Paris, the preparation for the concert, he audience, everybody waiting for Django? At the river, taking his own time, the discussions about the catfish and cooking? His brother, his agent, the band, his old and dominating mother, his wife?

8. The performance, the power, Django as a different person? The extraordinary applause? The audience getting to the mood of the beat?

9. The German attitude, wanting no wrong notes, seeing Django as degenerative, not liking his swing or jazz, nor the blues? The contrast with the audience responding to the beat – even some of the German military?

10. The authorities, the German musician and his career? Django’s brother, the manager, relationships within the band, the complementarity – and each being focused on during the concert? The invitation to go to Germany, for the morale of the German military? Piaf and Trenet touring? The limits of the music to be played?

11. Django, not interested in politics, only in music? Willing to go to Germany?

12. The arrival of Louise, her Belgian background, her coming and going, the past relationship, her love of the music, the influence on Django not to go to Berlin, the sexual encounter, going to see the wife, warning her to leave – the wife accepting this but disliking Louise? Louise being found again with the Germans, her double agency – and her stating that she would survive?

13. Django, influenced by Louise, his wife, love, pregnancy, concerned?

14. The character and personality of his mother, dominant?

15. The member of the band, his family, deciding to stay in France? Seen at the end of the concert?

16. Their going to the Swiss border, the local contacts, the Resistance, the promises? Living in the Gypsy settlement? Playing at the inn, everybody participating – and the experience of the brawl and playing on while the men fought?

17. Django fishing, the encounter with the priest, shared love of fishing, the priest inviting him to the church, his saying he did not believe, but the organ, the mighty sound, his compositions? The priest also seen jovially in the bar?

18. The arrest, the feeling of imprisonment, the cell, the grim cries on the night? His being persuaded to go to Berlin, free, yet still being considered degenerate? The attacks on Gypsies?

19. The concert in the mansion, the hosts, dressing to play, the limits on what they could play, the censorship of most of the style, not the wrong notes? The performance, the enthusiasm? The German supervisor and his puritanical approach? Louise, dancing, the officers getting up to dance – and some of the behaviour, drunk, sexual? The German observer and his stopping the music?

20. The concert, the cover of the escape of the British pilot? The raid on the train and explosion? Revenge, the flamethrowers destroying the gypsy caravans?

21. The challenge to the resistance, the using Django, the further promises that he could go, wanting the men to join the Resistance, the men doing this, the women left behind?

22. Django, his wife and mother, the hardships of the mountain climb, the women going back, the tracker dogs, the guide, Django burying himself in the snow, not discovered?

23. The immediate transition to May 1945, the end of the war, his calmness, the orchestra, his conducting, the Requiem for Deceased Gypsies? His mother, wife and child, friends?

24. The film as a tribute to Django Reinhardt?