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Une minute de silence (1998) Plus avec IMDbPro »

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A Germinal for our times?, 24 juin 2005
Auteur : dbdumonteil

A hundred years time after Emile Zola and his Germinal ,a page has been turned.There are no more miners in France."Une minute de silence" depicts the last moments of a mine in Merlebach.Some things have not changed:everything belongs to the mine,including the one-eyed's cafe.

The director was heavily influenced by Kenneth Loach whose shade hangs over the whole movie.But not for the best:The only thing the script writers seem to have learned from the English artist is a loose plot,and in spite of some good actors,such as Bruno Pulutzu,de la comedy française,the movie never really takes off.Unlike Loach's characters these ones are not really endearing and we do not really care about them.The "minute of silence" -which gives the movie its title is a good trick,which might allow the viewers to make some dough,provided their friends did not see the movie,but the connection with the movie escapes me,I fear.Of course,when somebody dies (or something:here,the mines),the minute of silence is de rigueur.But the metaphor is ponderous it's the least we can say.

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Aimless industrial strife, 27 mars 2003

Auteur : TrevorAclea de London, England

Siri's film shows a lot of promise and just about manages to sustain interest for it's brief running time, but never seems to get anywhere. Set against a poorly defined impending strike (it is only virtually at the end of the film that we discover it is to save what is described as the last working coal mine in France) and hindered by some confusingly ill-defined family relationships, it follows a couple of young miners tied by their heritage to an industry with no future. They fill in their aimless lives out of the pit with drinking, whoring and bickering, one of them flirting with an apprenticeship with a slick but sleazy German human trafficker-cum-businessman (yet another ill-defined character). When violence finally erupts on the picket line, the two friends have to choose sides: no prizes for guessing the outcome.

While infinitely more cinematic than the equivalent "it's Grim up North" British neo-kitchen sinkers, there's a purposelessness to the film that denies it any real power. It strikes all the right attitudes, but also makes the mistake (for international audiences) of assuming a high level of awareness of the national importance of the real events: without it, the climax seems more contrived than cathartic - less the end of a way in life in a torrent of batons and rubber bullets, more an attempt to bring its characters to a moment of decision that, sadly, has too little resonance for an audience. Well shot, well scored and well intentioned, 'Une Minute de Silence' sadly never lives up to its promise.

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