16/12/2024 - Following in the wake of a family hiding out on the fringes of society, Baya Kasmi offers up a moving film, striking the perfect harsh-soft balance

Patience Munchenbach, Félix Moati, Vimala Pons and Louis Obry in Mikado

"It’s mad how you always feel the need to laugh when things are sad." It’s into the new territory of paradoxes and nuance that Baya Kasmi is now venturing by way of Mikado [+see also:
trailer
interview: Baya Kasmi, Félix Moati
film profile], leaving behind the intelligent comedy genre which has thus far been her trademark (I’m All Yours [+see also:
trailer
film profile], The (In)famous Youssef Salem). And the French filmmaker is doing so spectacularly, given the resounding success enjoyed by her latest movie - screened in a premiere at the 16th Les Arcs Film Festival (an additional stage in a highly successful festival tour which has seen the film travelling from Angoulême to Jeddah by way of Arras) and set to be released in French cinemas on 9 April by Memento Distribution – a work of great, intimate sensitivity enhanced by a subtly atmospheric mise en scène.

"Hide, kids". It’s full-blown panic for Mikado (Félix Moati) and Laetitia (Vimala Pons) when the police burst in out of nowhere to serve the thirty-year-old with a summons to appear in court in Marseille to stand trial for harassment. After lying, ("it’s not my son, it’s the neighbours’"), desperately taking flight in their little people-carrier with their two children, teenager Nuage (Patience Munchenbach) and young Zéphyr (Louis Obry), and then coming to a decision: "you have to go and say sorry, otherwise they’ll find us and take the children away", "I’m going to throw them under the bus, I should have gone to the police ages ago."

Who are this strange couple who are deeply in love but in dire straits? What crimes have they committed to make them tremble at the most insignificant roadside check? A random encounter (following a car breaking down) with widower teacher Vincent (Ramzy Bedia), who lives in a remote country house with his daughter Théa (Saül Benchetrit) and who agrees, out of the kindness of his heart (among other reasons), to take in this small nomadic family until the replacement for their van’s faulty alternator is delivered, slowly sheds light on their situation. But this doesn’t mean that all their problems will be solved, because the past entanglements of our highly sensitive couple, Mikado and Laetitia, are incredibly tricky to untangle without causing more damage. Nuage, meanwhile, is reaching an age where she’s aspiring to a more "normal" existence…

With its impeccable cast (with a special mention going to the charismatic Patience Munchenbach), a script deftly fine-tuned between frequent acceleration and gradual dénouement - courtesy of the director in league with Olivier Adam and Magaly Richard-Serrano - superb, sensual cinematography at the hands of Romain Le Bonniec, and the perfect chemistry between a radiant, summer atmosphere and a forceful underlying melancholy, the film is bursting with qualities beneath its modest appearance of a societal spotlight on voluntary marginalisation in reaction to a brutal and, at times, unjust world. It’s a subject which Baya Kasmi runs with, demonstrating incredibly poignant humanity as she marries joy and sadness with great acuity to create a bittersweet blend which only the bond between living beings – albeit often hard to forge - can transform into hope.

Mikado was produced by Karé Productions and Films Grand Huit. Pulsar Content are overseeing world sales.

(Translated from French)