Wasteland

On the edge of Paris, on ground turned to demolition waste, a gang of children lives with its own rules, its own leader and its own punishments. The adults are either absent or useless. As the newest member is tested, the harshness of the arrangement becomes clear. The film is not interested in crime. It is interested in abandoned children building their own society: it does not make them charming and shows step by step how violence is learned. The waste ground is not a symbol either; it is genuinely a place nobody has claimed. The form is realist: real empty lots, black-and-white photography and mostly non-professional young actors. Marcel Carné directed. In this period he had moved away from poetic realism towards subjects of youth; the film belongs to his late work and to his search for a place of his own against the new wave then rising in French cinema. His relations with critics were poor in later years, and these films sat in the middle of that argument. Danièle Gaubert and Roland Lesaffre are in the cast. Who it is for: viewers curious about French youth drama and Carné's lesser-known period. Who it is not for: anyone expecting his classics. The film is scattered, its characters are hard to distinguish and its tone wavers at times.