With Samba, the directors of Intouchables are still aiming right [critique]

The drama by Eric Tolédano and Olivier Nakache offers great roles to Omar Sy, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Tahar Rahim and Izïa Higelin.

Untouchables had proven that French comedy was not necessarily synonymous with filthy dialogue, appalling staging and public contempt. The duo had achieved what we thought almost impossible, a real feel good movie, mastered and worthy. Accident ? With its title, its subject (undocumented immigrants and the meeting between two worlds) and the 20 million “before movie”, Samba could suggest that there would be a backlash. All wrong.

C8 will rebroadcast this lovely film at 9:10 p.m. Omar Syreleased in 2014 in cinemas. The editorial team recommends it.

Done laughing?

First of all, we might as well warn those who come with a knife between their teeth and think that the duo is making its new move in the old ways: that is not the case. The true story disguised as a comedy and the opposition between two opposites (the battered big bourgeois has given way to the ravaged big bourgeois but the black guy is identical) does not hide a Untouchables 2. This is a completely different matter. Rather than resting on their laurels, the duo takes everyone by surprise. The two filmmakers play with the public's expectations by taking Omar again, but to give him a completely different role, very restrained, less funny but much more moving. Besides, he is not the comic potential of the film and they even go so far as to refuse him a dance scene! Done laughing? If Untouchables was a real comedy, Samba is less funny than really fair; it is also a political film like Monicelli or Risi were. The joy is grating, the subject vaguely depressive and the quadrille avoids clichés to move from pure emotion to modest pain.

Eric Tolédano: “After Intouchables, we had to surprise with Samba. Omar first.”

Undocumented and without calculation

As in Untouchableswhat Toledano and Nakache succeed with flying colors, it is a truly worthy film, which pays attention to details, defuses all the expected scenes thanks to a sense of gag and supreme feel good emotion… We could cite 15 sequences extraordinary (a very moving scene on the roofs of Paris, the passage in the association helping powerful undocumented immigrants, the hysterics of Charlotte Gainsbourgthe duo Omar and Tahar or the brilliant opening), but we will only keep the café scene where the senior executive finally confides in the undocumented migrant. A delicate scene which sums up the essence of the film: mixing rom com, social realism and contemporary fable without ever feeling prefabricated. This is the strength of the film: no marketing calculation, no mercantile reasoning. Making a very human undocumented migrant – too human, ambivalent and fallible – into a pure cinema hero is more than daring, especially in these times (follow the cross-eyed look). Toledano and Nakache ultimately succeed in a real sentimental comedy which allows them to delve behind the scenes to approach a darker film on immigration. We are not transforming Samba in a pamphlet, but the film at times probes the exploitation of the Third World, the repulsive good conscience of associations with, as its only weapon, a scathing humor.

Why we don't see Omar Sy dancing in Samba

The tour de force

Obviously, Samba would be nothing without its actors. Unsurprisingly, the film belongs to Omar, who succeeds in making us forget the Intouchables and plays an endearing, human and complex character with nuance. In front of him, Charlotte Gainsbourg finds the best role of her overloaded year and proves (after Lend Me Your Hand) that she excels in the register of romantic comedy and counter-jobs. Tahar Rahimhe explodes the counters, establishes himself as a real beast of the stage and deploys an extraordinary physical and comic incarnation. The debate rages in the editorial office to know if he is stealing the show from the other actors. Where there is no discussion, however, is to praise the direction of the actors, the writing talent and the incredible staging of the filmmaker duo. Samba is a film that makes you want to dance, laugh, cry. With dignity. Without ever forcing your hand. In the French industrial and artistic context, it's a fucking tour de force.
Gaël Golhen

Charlotte Gainsbourg: “I was inhibited by the duty to make people laugh in Samba”