Rebellion

The seventh feature from director Mathieu Kassovitz, Rebellion sees the maker of La Haine return to more pointedly political ground following English language romps Babylon AD and Gothika. He’s more comfortable here among the rhetoric, focusing on French colony New Caledonia’s hostage crisis of 1988, where the indigenous Kanak stormed a gendarmerie in protest at Paris’s dictatorial ruling of their nation. Capturing twenty-three French, the assailants retreated to the bush and demanded the immediate independence of New Caledonia in return for their prisoners.

Kassovitz, who also co-writes and stars as negotiator Capitaine Philippe Legorjus, has fashioned an angry, bombastic account of brinkmanship and political failings. Though occasionally too didactic and on-the-nose, Kassovitz's film often makes for compelling cinema. Technically arresting, there are several sequences of real flair and tension, most notably a lengthy, single-take flashback sequence to the Kanak’s initial assault. Excellent use is also made of stock footage: clips of then-presidential rivals François Mitterrand and Jacque Chirac in the lead-up to the inevitable attack on the cave which hides the rebels are particularly eerie. The attack itself is then expertly, devastatingly rendered. [Chris Fyvie]