Shéhérazade

CinemaSerf

"Zach" (Dylan Robert) has been released on some fairly strict parole conditions, but from the moment he leaves the prison he realises that he won't be going home to his mother. Frustrated, he goes back to his old drug-peddling buddies but they don't want him near them. He goes to visit his mum and her new boyfriend, but leaves with short-shrift finding himself homeless - and horny. To kill both birds with one stone, he hooks up with "Shéhérezade" (Kenza Fortas) who gets him to strip down in anticipation before doing a runner with the only thing of value he has - a chunk of hash! Now broke as well, he sets off to find her working the streets of an unforgiving Marseille and get his property back. She isn't that hard to find, but his merchandise has long gone so he decides there are other ways she can pay him back. Next thing he's her pimp, then a few more girls join in and then he asks his ertswhile pal "Ryad" (Idir Azougli) to help rid him of some brutal Bulgarian enforcers and all looks fine - business-wise. Meantime, he and she are beginning to fall for one another and so when one of his "colleagues" makes a play for his gal, and then after she is brutally assaulted he takes the law into his own hands. Is there any chance that the pair can ever just settle down to a normal life - even by their own standards? Has any one ever seen a film set in this city that wasn't a gritty affair? This one shows up a location that hasn't so much an underbelly and an under-carcase and the lives lived by both "Zach" and "Shéhérazade" amidst the violence and prostitution is solidly depicted here by two really quite engaging performances. That's especially true of a Robert whose characterisation of this naive, tousled, seventeen-year-old who refuses to be entirely subsumed by the sleazy culture that surrounds him is affecting and well foiled by a Fortas who manages to craft a role that ought to be fairly dislikeable, but that ends up - well, not. It is a little bit over-scored, but the violence isn't gratuitous and the dialogue often quite potent as their struggles take us to a denouement that wasn't quite what I was expecting. It's certainly worth a look if you like your drama very near the bone and I did feel it had slight shades of "Romeo and Juliet" to it, too.