00:00Laurence Vallin directs and stars in the French undercover cop thriller Little Jaffna,
00:04which stands out in the crowded crime genre.
00:07Vallin plays Michael, who lives in Paris' Tamil district of Little Jaffna,
00:11who is infiltrating a street gang that is financing the rebels in the Sri Lankan Civil War.
00:16As Michael integrates himself deeper,
00:18he begins to question his own identity and connection to his past and culture.
00:23The film is Vallin's feature-directed debut,
00:25expanding his short of the same name from 2018,
00:28and it's clear he's got a promising visual eye,
00:30with that very specific setting in the Sri Lankan diaspora
00:34making this feel extremely unique,
00:36because it's a view of Paris that we rarely see.
00:39There's undeniably the influence of Scorsese and De Palma,
00:42but what really struck me about the movie is how bold it looks
00:46with these bright, vibrant splashes of colour everywhere,
00:49especially in the clothing that Michael and the gang members wear.
00:52There's a brash quality that can be especially felt in the early scenes,
00:56running around in the streets, getting into trouble and fight,
00:59that's uncommon in a genre that tends to be gritty and desaturated.
01:03It's a shame the movie can't keep up that momentum,
01:06as the gang members are trying to be more subtle,
01:08so you get these more conventional sections of tension,
01:11as Michael tries to sneak around without getting caught.
01:14But even so, the energy and sense of community
01:17beats through this film,
01:19and Vallin captures it in a way that feels alive.
01:22The plot itself is a bunch of fairly familiar tropes of undercover cop movies,
01:26like torn allegiances and not knowing where your cover ends
01:30and the real you begins,
01:31but the cultural specifics adds a lot of nuance and complexity
01:35that freshens them up.
01:37Vallin's performance in front of the camera is internalised and close to the vest,
01:41but his expressions speak to how conflicted the character is,
01:44especially as he finds a feeling of connection
01:46that he knows he will have to betray.
01:48Rescued by his grandmother after his father gave his life to the cause,
01:52Michael moved to Paris when he was four,
01:54and the struggle of being Sri Lankan but wanting to be French
01:58is represented as vitiligo,
02:00which is makeup, but Vallin himself also has.
02:04That personal conflict is something I think the movie struggles to fully wrestle with,
02:08as it doesn't really interrogate Michael's role in the police,
02:11and that shows in the film's ending.
02:13The movie could have concluded on this complex, ambiguous note
02:17if it ended just two scenes earlier,
02:19but then it adds a code to which largely wraps things up in a way
02:22which is too tidy to be satisfying.
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