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The Passengers of the Night (Mikhaël Hers, 2022)
🕑 Added 2022-08-24 03:59:21 +0000 UTC
Here's how I described the film for the Viennale catalogue:
Beginning with archival footage of celebrations following the election of François Mitterand in 1981, and ending shortly after his second election in 1988, Mikhäel Hers’ The Passengers of the Night might initially be mistaken for a political film. But this is a story of personal freedom, the family as an evolving unit, and the city of Paris as an expansive canvas on which to paint one’s life. Elisabeth (Charlotte Gainsbourg), struggling to find her footing after her husband leaves her, gets a job as the call screener for a late night radio show whose host, Vanda (Emmanuelle Béart), takes the younger woman under her wing.
In the midst of this life transition, Elisabeth meets Talulah (Noée Abita), an 18-year-old girl living on the street. She makes the impulsive decision to let Talulah stay with her family, and the newcomer has a profound impact on both Elisabeth and her teenage son Mathias (Quito Rayon Richter). The film’s title refers to the late-night listeners of Vanda’s show, a largely anonymous league of outcasts and insomniacs, and it is alongside these figures that Hers locates the Romantic soul of urban France. A spiritual heir to Philippe Garrel and Léos Carax, Hers has arrived as a major cinematic voice.
Now that's a bit grandiose, as festival descriptions often are. But I decided to lean into that tone because I truly believe it. The Passengers of the Night is not exactly sui generis, as my points of comparison make clear. But what really sets this film apart is its openness, its rare sense of possibility. We know that the celebrations following Mitterand's election are short-lived; as is always the case, the compromises of governing will tarnish the glow of optimism that often idealizes the candidate. But instead of focusing on this disappointment, Hers moves in close, looking at (as Debord once put it) the passage of a few persons yhrough a rather brief period of time. Elisabeth's marriage has just ended, and since she gave up her career aspirations to raise her two children, she suddenly finds herself requiring skills she barely has the time to develop.
But of course, crisis is also opportunity, and Elisabeth's challenges allow her to figure out who she actually is. This self-discovery coincides with her daughter Judith (Megan Northam) beginning university and moving out on her own. This shifts the focus to Mathias, who is perhaps even more thrown by the changes in all their lives, since he is predictably struggling to forge his own identity as a young adult. That's where Talulah comes in. Her homelessness, her sullen beauty, and her inability to invest in the future, all construct her as a blank screen for those around her. For Elisabeth, she is a new child and a rescue project; for Mathias, she is a manic pixie Garrel girl, her dishevelment resembling a form of existential freedom.
Despite all these projections and complications, The Passengers of the Night is never schematic or prescriptive. Hers considers the 80s in Paris as a moment of transition, one whose outcome no one could reasonably predict. The fact that Mitterand ushered in neoliberalism instead of socialism is mirrored by Elisabeth and her family who, unlike Talulah, do not abandon the family unit but work to transform it into something malleable and new. As the titular late-night radio show confirms, Paris is made of a million stories. But most of them are subsumed in the larger narrative of history. Nothing can remain in flux forever; the chips do have to fall. But Hers' film creates a space fitful reorganization, and implies that these liminal moments are the prelude to any dream of the future. Under the paving stones, the beach; and of course, between the skyscrapers, the sky.
