Gray concrete, warehouses, empty parking
What is HLM? A big apartment building, situated is
some trashy suburban area of the French city, which houses the unemployed,
immigrants and other not-so-lucky. If you follow the news, you’d think that HLM
is a crime-infected place and sometimes inhabitants of those projects are going
to the rich neighborhoods in order to burn cars and destroy some property.
Despite that grim news coverage, you shouldn’t degrade
inhabitants of the HLM to merely sociological category. Those projects are
inhabited by the people, who feel the same emotions, as everybody else. Almost
everyone, including heroes of the film, are experiencing or afraid of
loneliness. An aged man, who refused to pay for elevator’s maintenance and who
ended up in a wheelchair; a burned-out actress, who moves to HLM; teenager, who
lives without parents; an old Arab woman, whose son is in prison.
Loneliness methodically wears down the man and every
he loses a bit of life joy. Despite that, in the tales, and sometimes in life,
the miracles are happening in the most unusual places. Like an American astronaut
makes a crash landing on the HLM’s roof and an old woman would get a substitute
son for a few days. Those few days could bring the joy of life to someone and
understand the meaning of such words as friendship and mutual help.
«Asphalte» is a kind and positive story, which takes
part in the most unusual place. Film goes only for one hour and forty minutes,
but the spectator, along with the heroes, feel the same good emotions. I recommend
you to watch it, you will not regret this.
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