Director Claus Drexel dedicates a film to the homeless. And works with strong contrasts. He juxtaposes poverty with images full of beauty from the city of Paris.
Paris – Christine has lived on the streets for years. Like many of the homeless people in Paris, she hides in makeshift shelters to sleep and stands in line in front of soup kitchens. One day, eight-year-old Suli appears in front of her shelter.
She decides to chase him away. But when she realizes that the Eritrean boy was separated from his mother, she finally takes care of him.
With “Under the Stars of Paris”, the German director Claus Drexel is dedicating another film to the homeless. But this time it’s not a documentary, but a realistic fairy tale. The 53-year-old linked two topics: that of the French homeless and that of homeless migrants.
As a holdover from his documentary “Au bord du monde” (Eng. At the Edge of the World) from 2013, Drexel took over the description of the everyday life of the homeless, which takes place between soup kitchens, Parisian park benches and their makeshift shelters.
Drexel also plays with strong contrasts here: The poverty in which these people live is juxtaposed with images of the beauty of the city: the Seine at night, the snow falling on the cobblestones under the yellow light of the street lamps. The search for the sorely missing mother also leads to places where hundreds of migrants live illegally and homeless in Paris, only to end up at Charles de Gaulle Airport.
“Under the Stars of Paris” is a story about loss, abandonment and rediscovered humanity. Because in the search for the missing mother, Christine meets an unexpected willingness to help. But memories of their own past life are also awakened.
Through the narrative form of the realistic fairy tale, Drexel avoids falling into the tragic-dramatic. The story, which occasionally uses stereotypes, is very light-footed, to which the acting performance of Catherine Frot (“Madame Marguerite or the art of crooked tones”), who plays her role as Christine with sensitive humor, also contributes.
Drexel tackles difficult subjects with astonishing simplicity; its carefully staged story makes the film sensitive, lively and, above all, accessible to a wide audience.
Under the stars of Paris, France, 2019, 86 min., FSK from 12, by Claus Drexel, with Catherine Frot, Mahamadou Yaffa, Dominique Frot dpa
