THE STORY – Four migrants of Moroccan origin finally make it into France, exploring the various facets of Paris.
THE CAST – N/A
THE TEAM – Sylvain George (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 164 Minutes
In 2022, French director Sylvain George, a philosophy student, and social worker turned filmmaker, unveiled the first installment of what was then a two-part story: “Obscure Night”, a diptych about the experience of migrants in the no man’s land of Melilla, a Spanish enclave within Morocco serving as the land border between Africa and Europe. George had spent a considerable amount of time filming, ending up with so much footage that even splitting the release in two still entailed a hefty runtime: “Wild Leaves (The Burning Ones, the Obstinate)” is four hours and fifteen minutes, the follow-up “Goodbye Here, Anywhere” just over three hours.
At the time, while promoting the second part at the Locarno Film Festival (where both chapters premiered), George said there were no plans for a third movie. That has evidently changed, as shown by the existence of “Ain’t I a Child?”, which is likely to enjoy the same kind of success on the festival circuit as its two predecessors did (world and international premiere for this one occurred at Visions du Réel and Cannes, respectively). Anything beyond that is still in flux, not least because the 164-minute duration will not be an incentive to cinema viewers outside of the hardcore arthouse crowd. There is also the question, as there was with Wang Bing’s “Youth” triptych, of how well it can play in a context where it’s viewed apart from the first two chapters, even though the director, aware of the niche appeal of such endeavors even among more ardent cinephiles, set out to make each film viewable as a standalone work.
Having last followed them in Melilla, the camera now catches up with Malik, Mehdi, and Hassan in a completely different environment: no longer waiting to reach Europe, the three Moroccan men have now arrived in Paris, far away from the perennial state of being caught in between that was their life during the attempted crossing. At long last, they have fulfilled their dream. Or have they? As George walks alongside them down the streets of the French capital, it becomes clear that life in the big city, while alluring, is not without its dangers, with joy and violence coexisting within a relatively short distance from one another. The nights are perhaps not as filled with uncertainty as they were a while back, but the European destination can, at times, be just as tricky to navigate as the path that led to it.
In keeping with the style of the previous two entries, this new leg of the journey is captured via deceptively monochrome cinematography, the black and white images helping convey an air of timelessness, as the experience of the protagonists is both rooted in very contemporary concerns (which, alongside George’s previous work and interests, sparked his pursuit of these topics in cinematic form) and very much applicable to any era in human history. This was especially true of the other two installments, set in a place that almost exists outside of conventional space and time (at least from the migrants’ point of view), but “Ain’t I a Child?” manages to put a similar spin on Paris, serving as a more lyrical counterpart to the handheld uncertainties in something like Boris Lojkine’s “The Story of Souleymane.”
And yet, newcomers might not grasp the full breadth of what the filmmaker set out to bring to the screen. The situation is not quite like that of the aforementioned “Youth” trilogy, which Wang Bing shot as a single project over a specific – albeit extended – period of time and then split into three films (with a combined running time similar to the totality of “Obscure Night”), shown in such a staggered manner – Cannes 2023, then Locarno and Venice 2024 – that few attendees of the latter events could get the whole picture. Because “Ain’t I a Child?” wasn’t really planned beforehand and effectively shot separately from the main body of the film, so to speak, it does work better as a standalone piece. Still, the journey of the returning characters inevitably becomes richer, philosophically and emotionally, if one is aware of the additional context and backstory provided by the original diptych. As a 164-minute piece, it’s sufficiently interesting. As the coda to a previous 7-hour experience, it is definitely more demanding but arguably more rewarding in the long run (pun not intended).
Exhausting and exhilarating, dense and straightforward, monochrome and (figuratively) colorful, the film is an immaculately assembled, spiritually precise, anthropologically compelling slice of human life that has emerged from the treacherous abyss of the border zone and made its way into a different kind of endless maze. Technically a destination, Paris turns out to be just another leg of the voyage from a certain point of view, showing that even when one thinks they may have settled down, the journey never truly ends. The night goes on, and while the trilogy’s French title refers primarily to its darkness, there is a (perhaps not entirely unintentional) layer of wordplay to the international translation, as Sylvain George has skillfully brought to life a microcosm that even those more attuned to the subject may have found a bit, well, obscure before experiencing it in its full, giant-sized, black-and-white glory.
