Dalready, in his first film, Roxane, the fight of an egg producer who made his hens happy by telling them Cyrano, the young director Mélanie Auffret distinguished herself by her original approach, her singular style, her subtle direction of the actors, Guillaume de Tonquédec, Léa Drucker and Lionel Abelanski.His second feature, The small victories is in the same vein and addresses the desertification of the French countryside – these lost territories – and the often forgotten subject of illiteracy.
A certain neglected France, seen through the daily life of a teacher and mayor of a small Breton village who struggles day and night for its inhabitants. Alice (Julia Platon) must also save her school threatened with closure, reopen a bakery, be a social worker, nurse, even sexologist, road worker…
The impromptu arrival in his class of Émile (Michel Blanc), a grumpy sixty-year-old who has decided to learn to read and write, will change a lot of things. For Alice, a kind of Republican soldier, there is no question of excluding her or abandoning these citizens who, too, are investing in the survival of their village. Like Saturnin (Lionel Abelanski), his deputy at the town hall, Bruno (Bruno Raffaelli), Pauline (India Hair) and Jeanine (Marie-Pierre Casey) who regrets the time “when there was still a doctor ! »
Illiteracy in the line of sight
The idea of telling the daily life of an exemplary young woman came to Mélanie Auffret from a meeting. The one with Fanny Lacroix, mayor of Châtel-En-Trièves, a small town of 500 inhabitants in Isère. “She is a single mother with boundless energy, whose determination and courage immediately blew me away. Her journey largely inspired me the character of Alice. The peculiarity of the phenomenon of desertification is that it provokes others. The flight of populations to large cities not only causes a loss of activity, but also a loss of social ties. It is first of all the shops that close and move away, the places of conviviality that become rare, access to first aid that is restricted, then the schools that close. Today nearly 60% of rural communities no longer have any local shops,” says the director.
READ ALSOCinema: what is “La Syndicalist” worth with Isabelle Huppert?Originally from Plescop in Morbihan, Mélanie Auffret visited 80 villages before choosing. “The Juch has become obvious,” she says. I was struck by the contrast between the beauty of its alleys, its greenery, its buildings, and the social and economic reality that touches it: it is a village on the wire which fights every day to maintain its social cohesion and its attractiveness. At Juch, there have been up to ten bistros, two butchers, two bakeries. At home too, an incredible elected official fought to keep his school open. »
Another theme widely addressed by the film: illiteracy, which affects almost 7% of the population of our country. “Here too, adds the filmmaker, I wanted to document my approach. I met Jeannette, Philippe, Marie-Claude, Aline… They all went back to school as adults. Hence the idea of the character of Émile, constantly on the defensive, unhappy, grumpy and who, in contact with the children of the class, will socialize while learning, at 65, to read and write. .
No militancy in this comedy that won two awards at the last Alpe d’Huez Festival, but an implacable observation of the phenomenon of “lost territories” which is not new, and of an administration that often ignores the reality on the ground. Like this Academy inspector who decides that the Kerguen school should close below a certain number of students. The absurd responds to system D and the solidarity of women and men united by the same desire not to disappear. Mélanie Auffret gives them the floor through a fine troupe of actors. These are their small victories.
“Small victories”, indoors.