Because every day terrible things happen, but also wonderful things, for example people who are capable, in the middle of summer in small French villages, of going to oppose the expulsion of an African kid. They’re admirable from that point of view, but it’s not a fairytale: actually there are lots of people like that. They’re also truly engaged: they don’t hide behind other people and they’re sad about what has happened to their neighbour on the same floor. The world has changed and their generation perhaps doesn’t have the same influence as before, but these people suffer if they imagine that their struggle hasn’t been the least bit effective. What about the idealism and extreme kindness of the couple played by Jean-Pierre Darroussin and Ariane Ascaride? This film makes a harsh observation, but it ends well because we can imagine that the terrible events experienced by my characters will have taught them that they belong to the same world and have the same interests.

We absolutely have to reinvent a transgenerational class consciousness. But they don’t envisage another solution which we ourselves once envisaged. Which doesn’t mean they don’t protest we’ve seen proof of this with indignant youngsters rising up pretty much all over Europe. No young people imagine that there is an alternative. In the Western world today, there is a real gap in the way in which we see politics and the belief in an alternative. The characters in Last Summer were 25 years old, Marius was about 40 and now the main characters are about 50. You also tackle the issue of the generational gap. Staying true to Chekhov’s phrase, 'through the whole world, through other villages', I always try to do this starting from the place I know best, where I’m most able to spot what has changed, what has disappeared, etc… In these three films, it’s about taking stock of the state of a moral code, of the Left, of working-class culture in the West today. Thirty years ago, l’Estaque was very communist, made up mainly of workers and dockers. Robert Guédiguian: In 30 years and 17 films, I’ve made three films, my first one Last Summer, Marius and Jeannette and The Snows of Kilimanjaro, which are like cross-sections of the neighbourhood where I was born. Interview with the politically-engaged Marseilles-born director who has once again set down his camera in Marseilles for The Snows of Kilimanjaro, which was unveiled in the Un Certain Regard selection at the 64th Cannes Film Festival and has been selected as one of the three finalists for the European Parliament’s 2011 Lux Prize.Ĭineuropa: Why did you return to Marseilles and the subject of the underprivileged classes after several films you shot elsewhere, dealing with other themes?

The snows of kilimanjaro mobi