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Les Misérables

Screening on Film
Directed by Claude Lelouch.
With Jean-Paul Belmondo, Michael Boujenah, Alessandra Martines.
France, 1995, 35mm, color, 175 min.
French with English subtitles.

The oft-told tale gets an inventive reworking by veteran French director Claude Lelouch (A Man and A Woman). An ex-boxer agrees to transport a Jewish lawyer and his family from Paris to Switzerland during World War II. Over the course of the trip, the family reads passages from Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables to the illiterate boxer, who discovers many curious and inspiring parallels between Hugo’s characters and his own life. Hugo’s epic narrative proves a perfect match for Lelouch’s lush, romantic style. Although ripe with narrative events, it is ultimately the struggles of the common man which have the greatest resonance.

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Rosine Mbakam, 2025 McMillan-Stewart Fellow