For more than fifty years, different French governments have attempted to build an airport in the Nantes region. The support of different groups for the activity of the local population which rejected the infrastructure (and the human and environmental consequences of its implementation) generated a great political and territorial conflict. Faced with accumulated wear and tear, resulting from the protest but also from the effective occupation of state lands, Emmanuel Macron’s government announced in 2018 that it was giving up implementing the project during its mandate. This decision was celebrated as a victory for popular mobilization.
After the victory, filmmakers Guillaume Cailleau and Ben Russell approached the location to create an atypical documentary on what surrounds this ZAD (zone to be defended): direct action. This monumental film, lasting three and a half hours, was seen at the L’Alternativa International Independent Film Festival in Barcelona. The film begins around the desktop of a computer screen, virtual folders that store videos of resistance, protests and celebrations. These images and situations of activism could have focused the film, but Cailleau and Russell preferred to take another route.
direct action It’s a radically observational film. Beyond an initial label, there are no supporting texts or voice-overs to guide the audience. Usually there aren’t many words (and that amplifies the impact of those that are heard). Filmmakers focus on images and, with them, assert a kind of politics (and aesthetics and poetics) of everyday action. They show us the actions possible thanks to the preservation of the ZAD. And, in a way, they reveal in a very material way the meaning of the struggle: the lives of people after the epic response, or in parallel with it.
Cailleau and Rusell’s lens shows us fragments of reality through extended shots, generally quite static even if camera movements are not excluded. We see two men sowing fields that could have ended up covered in concrete, we see a sky that could be crossed by planes. We observe the kneading of bread or the rapid and precise preparation of numerous pancakes. We hear protest speeches at a party that the filmmakers record from outside the location where it is taking place. We also see creations by rappers or pianists. There is no blame for past defeats, nor any reliance on the adrenaline rush of combat.
However, the conflict is still there. The last part of the film shows that the struggle continues in Notre-Dame-des-Landes with demonstrations around the use of land and water. That there are always police and judicial attempts to dissolve organizations such as the Earth Uprisings environmental movement. We see the police projectiles being thrown through an (almost) impassive mechanical eye which distances itself from the report which takes place with camera in hand. These are different, both valid, ways of capturing reality. But, in an era of acceleration of lives and ways of telling them, the perspective of Cailleau and Russell has something counter-hegemonic.
At the end of the film, the filmmakers show a meeting between several activists and the press. One of the spokespersons speaks of the fear of the State when citizens see that “it is possible to claim the power to act”. Cailleau and Russell continue without offering any journalistic or essayistic device to guide the audience. This is perhaps an implicit invitation to inform oneself carefully. That each spectator is responsible for their own research process complementary to the viewing, immersive without spectacular (this is not Dunkirkneither one nor the other Saul’s son), which is proposed to us.
Our contradictions
Of course, the proposal is demanding. There are no obvious gratifications, but rather a commitment to austere and subtle enjoyment. Can we revel in the observation of everyday life and its times, without the vagueness and resources of hipster advertising which markets rural nostalgia by selling us pizzas or industrial beers?
We often talk about the opportunity to collectively rethink what is historically important. Question the fact that the center of human history is constituted by wars, conquests and mandates of (many) kings and (certain) queens, dimension daily life, community efforts, research. The authors of direct action They seem to be heading in that direction.
His proposal, in any case, can bring out our contradictions as a public. Place an uncomfortable mirror in front of us. Maybe we want the story to be told differently, the world to be different, but maybe we also want each movie to give us generous doses of entertainment. Perhaps we, the politicized spectators, are also addicted to the event, although in a different way from the moviegoer who is exclusively concerned with the more or less amusing mascletás of the blockbuster.
Mexican director Nicolás Pereda, author of funny black comedies like Wildlifespoke within the same L’Alternativa festival about how public expectations can lead to the closing of possible paths. “Cinema is perhaps the only art in which the majority of its recipients feel like they know exactly what they want. There is a fairly common idea of what films should look like. I think in literature or theater you accept more possibilities of style and form,” he said.
Cailleau and Russell’s film is a striking example of how images need not be explicitly directed through a story. It’s a demanding sample of other activist cinemas, far from the conventions of social dramas or political thrillers that commercial theaters can achieve. A few different political audiovisuals which appear little outside of specialized festivals, even though they are often accessible. See the vigorous archival work carried out by Jean-Gabriel Périot in A German youth, or the wonderful (and darkly comic) documentathe economyby Carmen Losmann. The authors of direct action They make things a little more difficult, but it might be worth a try.
