Poetry of Place - Neige (1981)

 There's nothing in my heart but the fear of dying old

The denizens of Juliet Berto's Neige may not fear personal death, but their lives are tinged with anxiety over loss - loss of friends, loss of family, loss of liberty, and (for many) loss of the fix they need to transcend their immediate surroundings. Neige chronicles a few days among a loose conglomeration of musicians, dealers, drug users, sex workers, and an assortment of characters living and hustling on and around the streets of Pigalle. While ostensibly focused on a barista, Anita played by Berto, the looseness translates to the narrative of the film as well. The plot contains straightforward crime story landmarks but the film prefers to wander through the streets along with its characters. Conversations feel overheard, the music is purely diegetic and provided by peep shows, café bands, record shops, and from the headphones of Bobby - a young street dealer played by Ras Paul Nephtali. Anita feels some maternal responsibility towards Bobby, and she tries to caution him as the heat from the police intensifies in the neighborhood. Bobby's youthful confidence and perhaps a misunderstanding of the sermons from Jocko, a charismatic (if not particularly pious) pastor, lead him to believe he cannot be caught. When the cops do finally close in on Bobby, it ends in violence. Deprived of their main conduit for heroin (snow/neige), the neighborhood starts fraying at the edges. Anita encounters Betty, a trans cabaret performer and addict, coming down hard in the street. Betty's habit is severe and she begs Anita to find her a fix. Despite their relative inexperience with heroin and the drought conditions in the neighborhood; Anita, Jocko, and Anita's boyfriend Willy all set out to score so that they can keep their friend alive. Their pursuit forces them out of their familiar enclave and onto a collision course with the authorities. 

Neige was Berto's first directorial collaboration with Jean-Henri Roger. The two would go on to direct another atmospheric genre picture, Cap Canaille, two years later. Berto was primarily known then (as she is now) for her acting; particularly for her work with Godard and Rivette. Neige is an incredibly assured debut film and Berto's experience in cinematic story telling and exposure to non-traditional narratives is evident. There are sufficient story details to cling to but the principle concern of Neige is to create a portrait of Pigalle and its inhabitants. In some ways, it invokes other significant street-life films from the era(Variety, Angel, Smithereens) but the genre elements are even further abstracted in Neige and it's less focused on a single character. It does bear some connective tissue with Luc Besson's Subway in its presentation of an environment and the characters that populate it (as well as a shared  interest in music). Much like Besson's film, Berto and Roger show you people and places but offer very little in the way of context or biographical details. You learn about the characters through their interactions and reactions in present time. Unlike Subway's hyper-stylization, Neige has an immediate, almost documentary feel to it. This inherent vitality relies heavily on the stunning photography from veteran cinematographer, William Lubtchansky, who also worked with Godard, Rivette, Agnes Varda, Nadine Trintignant, and others. The filmmaking on display here is highly attuned to the rhythms of Pigalle - lingering in brasseries, hurtling through streets, and moving through crowds everywhere from burlesque performances to creole religious services. While their personal histories go unexplained, the interconnectedness of the characters is obvious. Anita claims to have helped raise Bobby, Jocko freely lends (gives?) money to Willy, Loulou the bartender hired all his musician friends to work at Mr. Chat's club, a writer friend is willing to part with a packet of speed to help Betty, and Anita and Co. don't hesitate to scour the city for drugs when Betty is ailing. In contrast, institutions of authority are viewed with a deep suspicion and pessimism. The narcotics police are agents of brutality looking to bust small time players in the dope trade while failing to examine the root of the issue.

 Neige is currently being offered as part of a set from Fun City Editions along with La Garce/The Bitch which I also reviewed. Ultimately, I think I slightly preferred Neige though I found it more difficult to write coherently about. The Bitch is taking genre conventions and doing something really subversive with them in the text while Neige is a more expressionistic take on noir stylings. To watch it is to become wholly immersed in the sights and sounds of the Pigalle of that era - a carnival of neon, reggae, cigarette smoke, and wounded souls. I couldn't get enough of it and I think it's perfectly matched to Fun City's gritty, urban catalogue. Many of my favorite first time watches over the last year or two have been French films from around this era and I'd love to see even more StudioCanal and Gaumont properties ported over to US releases of this quality.