District B13
Performance Reviews || Saturday, 12 August, 2006
In the absence of any performance reviews to do we shall turn our attention to a dance film of sorts, although the connections between this film and dance are so far from abstract we best not pry too deeply.
District B13 can best be described as a vehicle for the films two stars, Cyril Raffaelli and David Belle, to show off there respective skills, martial arts and Parkour. The latter skill being the French incarnation of running around buildings, streets, staircases, etc and using them as climbing frames.
The plot is utterly non sensical. It's Escape From New York without the excuse that it was made in the eighties so we could forgive it for being cynical and just a bit crap.
Belle's character 'Leïto' is an inhabitant of the aforementioned District B13, an area of Paris that has become so lawless and uncontrollable the authorities simply built a giant wall around it and locked all of the inhabitants up inside. Leïto is the only good guy in a neighborhood of psychotic thugs led by Taha (Bibi Naceri who also co-wrote the script).
After destroying a great deal of Taha's drugs in a bath, escaping using his Parkour skills, having his sister kidnapped, rescued and re-captured he is locked up in prison to spend the rest of his life doing sit-ups.
At this point Cyril Raffaelli appears as undercover cop Damien. He takes down an entire underground gambling den all on his own and then the really stupid bit gets going when he is sent to disarm a stolen neutron bomb in District B13 (stop giggling at the back) with Leïto in tow.
The action sequences in the film are superbly captured by director - cinematographer Pierre Morel but they last for less than 10 minutes of this films run which is itself only 85 minutes in total. Both Raffaeli and Belle are superb physical actors who obviously know their stuff but when it comes to acting, they fall flat on their well toned backsides. Vocal delivery is laboured and painful to watch, the kids on Byker Grove could give these guys a lesson or two on delivery.
Poor storytelling, appalling music and some very ropey sound design don't help move things along either. The director also claims that they used high speed photography because the main stars were so fast we wouldn't be able to see what they were doing (look, seriously, stop laughing at the back!) Sadly a lot of under-cranking and skip-framing is very obviously used to pick up the pace.
If you cut out the plot, the music, the acting and just leave in the physical stuff you would have a well shot, meaningless, physical theatre film. As it stands District B13 is just a bad film and no amount of clever photography and building hopping can save it.
On a final note, we must advise you to watch the French dialogue version with English subtitles (unless you speak French of course) because the English dubbed version is so unintentionally comical you'll miss what little action there is when you are creased up laughing on the floor. Just how did an Irishman and a cockney end up in a French ghetto anyway?
District B13 will be released on DVD in October (called District 13 in the UK and Banlieue 13 in mainland Europe)
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