35 Shots of Rum

35 Shots of Rum

Here is a movie about four individuals who have been acquainted for ages and how their bond changes in a delayed manner. We are moved by this film and so engrossed by it. I saw movies where super heroes switch sides but it bored me. What matters is not the scope of a story, it’s the depth.

One pleasure in “35 Shots of Rum” by Claire Denis lies in figuring out what links these people closely together. Two couples live across a hallway from each other in the same Paris apartment building. Neither couple is “together.” Gabrielle and Noe give off roommate vibes, but considering the way Lionel and Josephine clearly adore each other, when she calls him “Papa”, it’s slightly surprising.

Lionel (Alex Descas) is train driver in France. Josephine (Mati Diop) works at a music store. Gabrielle (Nicole Dogue) drives her own taxi. Noe (Gregoire Colin) has no fixed plans. He says only his beloved cat keeps him from going to Brazil. These four go into both flats that we feel they are like family members living together virtually. Small incidents happen here and there. A guy flirts with Jo at her store while Gabrielle deals with an incessantly jabbering customer; also, Jo puts away her rice cooker when Lionel comes home with one too.

At work, Lionel attends a retirement party for an older engineer named Rene who used to work alongside him for years his colleagues loved him yet he was miserable because he did not ever want to retire later on a bus he tells Lionel that he does not know how he got into his life in the first place -and then doesn’t even want to be an engineer any longer Spending his life on trains and buses is no way to live.

Lionel seems happy enough: So do all four of the neighbors seem content? Yes, but not complete. One night they all go out together in Gabrielle’s taxi to a concert. The taxi breaks down, they seek shelter from rain in a Jamaican cafe; it has a great jukebox; there is some dancing with one another, with the café’s owner and others.

And that familiar music in that long scene is where Denis, as co-writer and director, effects the shift. She does this through eyes rather than talking. That’s what movies are for. They start off happy enough but incomplete. In the course of their dancing around and joking around it becomes apparent to them as well as to us how the pieces fit together.

Denis has been interested for long in West Africa’s former French colonies and people who went there from Africa. He married a German woman named Lionel who died so he goes with his daughter visiting her sister Aunt Jo (Ingrid Caven). It is part of Lionel’s desire to raise his daughter well and launch her into life. Lionel looks good while Jo is beautiful but neither of them considers such things worth worrying about.

A quiet light illuminates Dogue, who once used to be a stunning woman in her 40s and is now comfortably beautiful. It’s obvious that she has been in love with Lionel for a long time. No strings attached. Obviously Lionel has made compromises on the other side to become a good father. What does he ponder about his job? A job; he is proficient at it. It will not be unfortunate Rene’s tragedy.

You can live like this in a movie. It doesn’t preach at you. They are individuals whose lives go on normally, and Denis watches them with sensitivity. She isn’t an intruder but rather she discovers. He feels there is no traditional story, which takes us out of the movie theater inside our minds. It’s like we’re moving with them. Two are favored two are troubled. Will all four be blessed at the end? “35 Shots of Rum” is an intelligent film and knows that remains to be seen.

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