European Films

French actor Jalil Lespert (Le promeneur de Champ de Mars, Le petit Lieutenant) debuts as a feature director with 24 mesures (24 Measures), a kaleidoscope of gritty interlocking stories set at Christmas time and mostly taking place after dark. Conceived by Lespert and co-screenwriter Yann Apperry as tailor-made characters for the four principal actors, the roles obviously fit them like a glove, though the stories are not always as engaging as the characters in them, with especially the last section feeling out of synch with the rest. The film could do moderate business in France (where it will be released early December) and find a home on DVD elsewhere.

 

On Christmas Eve, four lonely souls connect with each other in different pairings, recognising each other’s loneliness because it is similar to their own. Lubna Azabal’s Helly has a past of drug use and prostitution and only wants to see her son but is not allowed to. Religious taxi driver Didier (Benoît Magimel) is caught up in a mess from which there seems to be only one way out. Bérangère Allaux’s Marie is a rich girl with a diva for a mother and is distracted while driving, while jazz drummer Chris (Sami Bouajila) finally gets the gig he has been waiting for.

 

Azabal (Paradise Now), on whom the film opens and closes, is almost unrecognisable with her peroxided hairdo and is the actor who impresses most, though acting is strong from the entire ensemble, including cameos from young Clotilde Hesme as a lover of Marie's and Marisa Berenson as her overbearing mother. The film is also well put together, double backing on itself several times without feeling forced in the way many overlapping narratives do. Nevertheless, the last section involving jazz drummer Chris -- which is in English and features an ominous voice-over -- at first feels unconnected to the rest of the film.

 

24 mesures (the title is a references to music and was translated on-screen as 24 Beats though press materials call the film 24 Measures) is filmed in a hurried and gritty look appropriate for such a bleak series of connected coincidences, with cinematographer Josée Deshaies staying close to the characters and moving along with them. She also knows how to make the most of the little available light in the night-time environments that look as inhospitable as the characters, which reinforces a documentary-like feel that is also brought about by the unaffected performances.