ZIM AND CO

France, 2005, 90minutes, Colour.
Adrian Jolivet.
Directed by Pierre Jolivet.

This is a very lively film. There are no long, meditative takes. This is all quick-paced editing, plenty of get up and go.

It is a film about twenty year olds, struggling with life, jobs, family limitations and tensions, police and racist harassment, life in modern day French provincial towns. The difference between Zim and Co and so many films about the problems of youth is that the characters are interesting and, despite their faults and mistakes, likeable. This is a film that combines realism and stark problems but is quietly and sensibly optimistic about human nature.

Zim is Polish/French. His friend Arthur comes from an African family where the father transfers his patriarchal notions to being more French than the French. The other member of the Co is Cheb who is from North Africa, but his family are genial and welcoming. There is also their waitress friend, Safia, who is Arab.

Zim gets into all kinds of trouble, sometimes his own fault, especially an initial road accident which leads to a judge demanding he get a responsible job to avoid a jail sentence. He is swindled by a man purportedly selling a car and that is not his fault. Arthur is the butt of racist jibes by the factory foreman. Cheb is busy trying to invent things.

By the end of the film, the audience is not in a state of depression about the world of youth today, as so often happens when we watch films that are grim slices of life. Zim and Co have a friendship and solidarity that means they could really make a good fist of their lives if they could.

Adrien Jolivet, son of the director, plays Zim persuasively. He also co-wrote the musical score.

1. A youth film? Issues of employment, family, the future? Society, the law? Opportunities?

2. The French urban setting, the town and the detail of its streets, factories and garages, police stations, apartments, restaurants?

3. The musical score, contemporary? The tone and the beat?

4. The camera work, pace, editing and vitality?

5. Themes of hopelessness, hope, opportunities, victims, society, lucky breaks, effort and responsibilities?

6. The opening with Zim and Co playing, the deaf and their enjoying the music? The bonds between the group? Their families, friendship?

7. Zim, smoking the cannabis, riding the bike, hitting the car, the old man and his vindictiveness, the witness against Zim, the police interrogations, severe, finding his record, his excuses and explanations, the night in prison, the judge, the discussion, the opportunity to save a prison sentence?

8. Zim, his age, character, his relationship with his mother, his father absent in Canada? Her boyfriends and his coming home? Going out, her upset about his not telling her of the police charges?

9. The character of Arthur, the traineeship in bodywork, the racist taunts of the manager? His father, the African background, pride in being French? More French than the French? The family sequences, the meals, the severe discipline of his father? His being fired from his job for being late? His father arranging the new job, the factory line, its monotony? His leaving? His father’s anger, disowning him? Arthur with his friends, the bonds between them, ordinary, strengths and weaknesses, helping Zim out in the end?

10. Cheb, North African background, the family, the genial mother, the friendly father, the sister and her concealing her piercings by the veil, relationship with his brother? The meals, Zim and Arthur coming? Cheb and his inventing things, the hinges for the door and the accidents, the whistle on the mobile phone? His being accident-prone? The forged diploma and his opportunities? The man in the shop cheating him about his invention, offering him the job of shop assistant, his sexual interpretation of the advance? The job?

11. Zim and Co and their work together – especially the painting of the room, watching the video of the owner, the family returning home?

12. Zim and the range of interviews, his being desperate, preparing, failing, telling lies to advance his case? The issue of the car, all his efforts to get a car, the advertisement, the man stealing his money and driving off? His stealing the car, being held up by the police – and the lucky break of his being let go? The licence, the test, the prejudices of the test supervisor? His going to work, discovering that the boss had embezzled the money, his lies?

13. Going to the judge, his explanations, her knowing the truth – and his decision to tell the whole truth? The effect and his freedom?

14. The group, their different racial backgrounds, the racist attitudes in France?

15. Their future, going to Paris – the positive outlook?