Review of Soliman’s story – a wonderful performance that balances the drama of a man clinging to the margins in Paris | film

THere’s a twist in the climax of this nocturnal Parisian immigrant drama that suddenly charges the film’s seemingly neutral title with meaning. Hopefully, the novel’s protagonist, Suleiman, is in the process of changing his fate, and this key scene is carried by Abu Sinjari’s brilliant acting: trembling violently with the tension and struggle of a lifetime, as well as the daily grind of a wage slave.

Slimane is a kind of every immigrant, clinging to the margins of the French capital. Hailing from Guinea, he rents out the delivery app account of Cameroonian Emmanuel (Emmanuel Yovanni) for work. Under constant pressure to meet his food delivery goals, he needs money to pay his Guinean colleague Barry (Alfa Omar Sow), who is coaching him on how to pass his asylum interview the next day. But the harassed Suleiman struggles to reproduce the details of the story of political repression that Barry recommended he tell.

Riding shotgun with Slimane as they traverse the Parisian streets, the film features some of the most poetic cycling scenes since Buster Keaton. Director Boris Luzhkin depicts France’s ever-changing capital with hazy, impressionistic beauty, occasionally emerging from shallow focus with a sober, crystalline composition to place his protagonist in this capitalist war. But Solomon is the constant focal point and is in a precarious position — not just traffic-wise, but also economically and emotionally. As he eavesdrops on an app’s call center, then loses his pants with a restaurant owner behind him on his orders, the film witnesses these small indignities steadily eroding his soul.

In its intimate accompaniment of an immigrant trying to make ends meet, Lujkin’s film is reminiscent of Ramin Bahrani’s drama “Man Push Cart,” set in New York in 2005 — though it’s less sentimental in the height of the digital age, and scenes often end as concisely as if they were on the same tight schedule as Slimane’s. But the issues are essentially the same: the forced disappearance of a class of economic migrants who are now so numerous that many of them are gaming the system, doubling their exploitation. Sangaré’s perfect, unfake performance helps them speak.