Director: Catherine Corsini (France). Year of Release: 2023
A taxi headed towards the coast. We later learn that we’re in Corsica, but to be honest we could be anywhere sunny. A Black woman is in the back of the car with her two young daughters. The baby is crying very loudly. The woman urges the taxi driver to hurry. When they reach the ferry terminal, they join the long queue. Then the woman’s old-time mobile phone rings. As she engages in a conversation, we don’t hear the other end. But the woman looks shocked, crestfallen.
After the opening credits, we jump forward 15 years. Khédidja is returning to Corsica with her daughters, Jessica – now 18, and Farah, 15. Khédidja has taken a job looking after the kids in the villa of a faux socialist middle class couple Sylviia and Marc. Although they talk about equality, the class differences between them and the hired help are always on show – something which their bored daughter Gaia openly ridicules.
Gaia offers to show Jessica round the island, and show her the beaches which only the locals know. Unlike her more reserved guest, Gaia is comfortable with her own body, and often swims and sunbathes topless. Soon she is coming on to Jessica, who has not yet had a relationship with a woman or a man. There is a natural flow in which the relationship develops. We are never sure whether the pair’s romance is going to lead anywhere, but for as long as it lasts, it is heartfelt.
Farah is more sullen and less academically gifted than her older sister, While Jess is waiting to be accepted by a top university, Farah is coasting through life. This has led her to develop a little street smart. She looks painfully aware that everyone on the beach is much whiter than herself. When Orsa, a young vendor, racially abuses the local kids then confiscates their football, Farah confronts him, then waits till he goes off on his jet ski before retrieving the ball and nicking Orsa’s drugs stash while she’s at it.
You get the feeling that Khédidja is much prouder of her older daughter than of the stroppyFarah.. Farah asks her mother how come she and Jess are darker skinned, if her father was white. More cuttingly, she asks why Jessica was given a more Western name which has allowed her to pass as an honorary White person, whereas Farah has been regularly Othered and excluded. You get the feeling that Farah implicitly blames her mother for the racism which she endures.
You can agree or disagree with Farah, but we are not expected to judge her opinions, more to feel her pain. We also feel the pain of Khédidja, who has tried to bring her kids up in a society where they are treated as second rate. She is simply unable to provide them with the security offered by her better off employers, and may well blame herself for the fact that her kids were forced to grow up in the banlieux. She encourages Jess’s attempts to flee her background into academia.
Jess is also aware of racism, but deals with it more pragmatically. When Farah starts dealing drugs on the side, Jess’s main worry is that her sister will get a police record, which would remove the limited chances which she has as a working class black girl. Jess believes in fighting the system by succeeding inside it – you may not agree with her strategy, but it would be unfair to accuse her of collaboration with racism. She is trying to survive on the unequal terms made available to her.
Various subplots are introduced, not least when Jess wanders over to the village from which her mother has always urged her to keep a distance. She learns that for arguably honourable reasons, Khédidja has lied to her about serious aspects of her past. This carries the serious danger of falling into overblown melodrama, but one of the things you must say about Rückkehr nach Korsika is that, although it literally ends with a group hug, it is never overly sentimental.
In fact, the film is incredibly adept at showing the limited range of opportunities available to Jess and Farah, unlike their mother’s bosses, who are of and happily mix with the bourgeoisie. The different girls react to this injustice in different ways – Jess knows that University offers some escape out of her impoverished past and looks quite prepared to use it. For Farah, life has little more to offer her than dissatisfying liaisons with boys who are unsuitable for her.
Corsini also made In den besten Händen (English title The Divide), another film showing working class people getting on with their everyday lives in difficult circumstance. I loved In den besten Händen, despite it being similarly patronised by critics. Even when not much appears to be happening on screen, the simple fact that we are witnessing the experiences of people who normally do not appear on screen makes Corsini’s films worth watching.
Many reviews have been sniffy, and reading some of them you wonder whether some film critics want to police which films are seen as being “appropriate” to inflict on the public. Specifically, why do directors like Catherine Corsini insist on banging on about class, race and sexuality (a charge which is rarely if ever levelled against Ismail Merchant and James Ivory). If you reflect the world view of film financiers, this is never seen as being problematic, or indeed, worthy of mention.
Rückkehr nach Korsika is occasionally a slight film – I don’t think it contains the breadth or depth of In den besten Händen, say. It feels a little like a holiday romance – something which is enjoyable while it lasts, and maybe sticks in your memory, although when you think back, it’s not as meaningful as it felt at the time. And perhaps the scenery is too pretty. This does not mean it does not tell an interesting story about interesting people. Well worth a watch.
CinePhil 