A thriller on Paris Tamils | EUROtoday
IThere are few, the Tamils of Paris. Especially seen. But in Little Jaffnafirst function movie on the similar time written, produced and interpreted by Lawrence Valin, this diaspora of 60,000 folks lastly finds a face, a breath, a language. Michael Beaulieu is a younger Franco-Tamoul cop, appointed by the DGSI to infiltrate a legal group situated within the Little Jaffna district, between the Gare du Nord and La Chapelle in Paris. Its mission: to dismantle an extortion and cash laundering system, which funds the separatist tigers of Sri Lanka.
In the neighborhood, the group goes to the checkout with out flinching – 200 euros for households, 1,000 for retailers – and the cash leaves in clandestine convoys to Switzerland. To attain Aya (Vela Ramamoorthy), Michael, the revered chief of this community, should first acquire the boldness of Puvi (Puviraj Raveendran), his lieutenant with regard to the lumberjack. But because it sinks into the guts of the group, its loyalty vacillates, confronted with not possible selections. Until Michael wonders who he actually belongs to.
Between two worlds, the hunt for an id
It is not any coincidence that Lawrence Valin launched into this journey. He composes along with his expertise: “I was the first in my family to be born in France. So there is somewhere an obligation to integrate. I had to be French, more than French. “And yet:” It was when I started working in cinema as an actor that I felt that I was not French. […] In the imagination of people, I do not represent that. »»
Behind Little Jaffnahides a desire to bring a fresh look at the Tamil community. “When there is no model, you don’t feel legitimate,” said Lawrence. Certainly, before Little Jaffna was born Dheepan by Jacques Audiard, Palme d’Or 2015, who evoked the exile of Tamils in a French city. But at the time, Lawrence Valin was offered a final role of figuration in the film, which he declines sharply. “I was fed up that the roles of Franco-Tamouls were those of migrants,” says Lawrence Vallin. From this frustration will first arise a short film in 2017, in the eponymous title, then this feature film, Little Jaffna. Read too How I counted diversity on TV
Like Lawrence, Michael is torn between his role as police officer, his education and his community. Born elsewhere, French here, treated with “white” by his own, he embodies the dilemma of those who are crossed by multiple identities, which they carry like an iron brand, from vitiligo to the face. “This film was a way to create my place. To say to me: in fact, I can be both, “supports the director. Until the smallest details: “When the character eats with a fork, it is a Western injunction. But among the Tamils, eating with your hands is a mark of respect for food. »»
Neither praise of communitarianism nor simplistic apology for assimilation, Little Jaffna Cartography This gray area where contemporary France is laboriously built. “It’s not just a thesis film […]. I try to understand, to say to myself: what makes you, suddenly, you switch from one to the other, and how you do to juggle the two. »»
A war seen from France
If Lawrence Valin signs this film, it is because he grew up with war. Not in Sri Lanka, but in the Paris suburbs, in a home crossed by the conflict. Like his character, he heard war stories on television, radio, or by family calls. And the horrors gradually become commonplace. “I remember the discussions between my mother and my aunt, where we were talking about beheaded heads in front of the portal … and just after:” What did you eat this afternoon? ” That’s, growing up in a conflict: believing it’s normal. And that is not. »»
From 1983 to 2009, the civil war in Sri Lanka would have killed nearly 100,000 people. The film takes up real elements: fundraising in the diaspora, radicalization, silent heritage. But for the rest, he wants to remind him: Little Jaffna There remains a fiction. “Tamils are not going to hit people on buildings!” He smiles.
Rather than going to film there, Lawrence Valin preferred to tell here. “This is not what I experienced. I needed to show the conflict from France. He filmed this distant war as she resonates here: in the salons, in the silences, in the identity of those who grow between two worlds. “It is such a little publicized conflict that you don’t even know where it comes from. The film invites us to understand. To learn. “We think we infiltrate terrorists. But on the other side, we see resistance fighters. The line is very fine between the two. »No Manichaeism. “In a conflict, there are necessarily shares of shadow and light. »»
Genre movie, gangster movie
But behind Little Jaffnathere is also an old gender cinema dream. That of a kid nourished in Belmondo, Denzel Washington or Vijay (huge Tamil star). He claims without complex his love of gangster films, Mean Streets de Scorsese – wink even in the name of his production company – to Heat by Michael Mann.
“The tunnels there are under the grocery stores are a bit of my Indiana Jones to me, ”he confesses all smiles. Everything is considered to awaken a well-known impression. “I tried to weave people in the unconscious … This feeling of having seen this sequence, but elsewhere. It’s about playing with the viewer’s landmarks, before blurring the tracks. “Each time, we expect it’ll go in a single route … and I am going to the opposite. »»
The movie might even have paid into the basic traitor journey, to the Scorsese. But right here, no betrayal. Rather a quest for house, a person in unstable steadiness between his police dedication, his household inheritance and his adoption band. “I was often told: he started French cop, he discovers the Tamil gangsters, and he ends up sponsor. But no. He begins French cop, he remains French cop. Except that between time, he understands that he can also be Tamil. He does not choose. He becomes both. »»
“I make this movie as if it have been the final”
To uncover
The kangaroo of the day
Answer
To carry this story, Lawrence Valin threw herself right into a vacuum with a flawless willpower. No web, no plan B. Very shortly, he began doing every little thing: writing, realizing, enjoying. “I make this film as if it were the last!” He says. Not for set up, query of survival. “I haven’t got the appropriate to make errors. They will not miss me if I play badly. But I feel that is what pushes me. I work at risk. »»
He is aware of it alone doesn’t signify the Tamil group. But by this movie, he opens a door, a breach. And specifies that others will rush into it. “I cannot do a second movie on the Tamil group, as a result of I do not need to be the one one to hold this illustration. Others now inform the remainder.
Little Jaffna is launched on April 30 within the eating room. The interview with Lawrence Valin is to be present in full on the social networks of the “point”.
https://www.lepoint.fr/culture/little-jaffna-un-thriller-sur-les-tamouls-de-paris-30-04-2025-2588569_3.php