“Les embers” and “Dossier 137” tell the story of the Yellow Vests

Foreman in a frozen food factory and mother, Karine (Virginie Efira), the heroine of the film The embers, leads a quiet life. But his involvement in the yellow vest movement shakes up his vision of the world. “This heroine is experiencing an awakening to politics. There she finds social bonds, hope and a vibration specific to collective action,” relates Thomas Kruithof, the director.

Before writing the first line, with his co-writer Jean-Baptiste Delafon, he met yellow vests in Lamballe (Côtes-d’Armor), Puy-en-Velay (Haute-Loire), Angoulême (Charente) and Limoges (Haute-Vienne), future shooting locations for the film. “Their presence as extras in certain scenes restores their energy. We wanted to show what was visceral about these citizens fighting for their purchasing power and the well-being of their families,” explains the filmmaker.

Fractures still gaping

Confronting representations, offering another vision of events and awakening the spectator’s reflection, this is also what provokes File 137. “We could see it at the time of the yellow vest movement: the police officers responsible for maintaining order were sometimes from the same social origins as the demonstrators,” Gilles Marchand, co-writer of the film, declared in Cannes.

“In our film, the IGPN inspector, of modest origin, comes from the same town as the victim of the police violence she is investigating. In her quest for truth, she must remain objective but ends up becoming attached to this file.

“Seven years have passed. But for some, it’s a bit as if the movement hadn’t gone all the way. The great debate and the lists of grievances do not seem to have had any concrete consequences,” analyzes Thomas Kruithof.

“The yellow vest movement has really exposed the fractures that run through French society, particularly between Paris, the metropolises and the provincial territories where many people feel invisible and where public services are declining,” adds Dominik Moll. This period is not that long ago and these fractures still exist.

An epic and sentimental film on the one hand, a police investigation shedding light on the functioning of an institution serving citizens on the other. The points of view of these two fictions enrich, without division and with nuance, our view of contemporary social movements.