35 Shots of Rum

How does one leave? What’s the appropriate way to cut ties with a job, a home, a lover, a father, the dead? The French film 35 Shots of Rum addresses the difficulty of departure, among other existential crises, with a subtlety that leaves a sonorous effect.

At the center of a small apartment complex community in an ethnic Parisian suburb, solemn and laconic Lionel (Alex Descas) drives a metro, the mirror reflections of his passengers his only company. His beautiful daughter Josephine (Mati Diop) still lives at home, keeping close to her widowed father while studying anthropology in grad school. Lionel begins to develop a romance with peppy but pensive neighbor Gabrielle (Nicole Dogue), who also leads a life of transit as a Parisian cabbie. Rounding out this “family” is the orphaned Noe (Gregoire Colin) who holds onto his parent’s penthouse apartment and old possessions and maintains a flirtation with Josephine.

You slip into this film as if it were a warm pool of water. Writer-director Claire Denis creates a melodious rhythm to her work, enveloping the audience with her characters’ lives. Minutes go by without dialogue: glances between the players speak volumes, a feat that’s as much a compliment to the actors as it is to Denis. Her astounding ability to convey meaning and emotion through silence helps to assuage the blows dealt by loud and blunt mainstream films.

But a forewarning: Denis offers no easy answers, no clear-cut narrative explanation, no neatly packaged message for the audience. She does, however, provide sumptuously stunning visuals. Wide night shots of apartment buildings and trains, checkered with lit compartments, open windows into the lives of others and create a sense of narrative vastness and possibility. Smaller moments similarly succeed, especially the sultry low-lighting used during an impromptu restaurant dance.

The divisions between Denis’ cinematic world and ours are almost nonexistent. So when you do leave, it’s seamless.