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Bookmark this pageUneasy Riders (1999)
Director: Jean-Pierre Sinapi
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
A DV experiment which grows on you big time. Opening with a neat introduction to its disabled and handicapped characters, riding in a minibus on the Southern French Route Nationale 7A ('The Pleasure Trail'), this challenging faux documentary is a piercing examination of society's attitude to the less favoured among us, an inadvertent (but who knows?) essay on form and, finally, an affecting love story. Set in a Roman Catholic centre, the film uses mainly disabled, non-professionals and follows the routine of residents and carers with refreshing handheld immediacy, shorn of the usual tricks, and with little or no music. Of the performers, that of Dardenne brothers' regular Olivier Gourmet stands out. As gruff, candid ex-union militant René, his efforts to make kind nurse Julie (Kaci, excellent) find him a prostitute set the home into often hilarious turmoil. Writer/director Sinapi's transparent humanism dignifies carers and patients alike, and by never losing sight of our common needs to be understood, recognised and loved, he turns the film into a quiet celebration of the fruits of that recognition.Author: WH
Cast & crew
Director: Jean-Pierre Sinapi
Producer: Jacques Fansten
Cast: Nadia Kaci, Olivier Gourmet, Lionel Abelanski, Chantal Neuwirth, Julien Boisselier, Saïd Taghmaoui, Gérald Thomassin, Jean-Claude Frissung full cast
Duration: 95 mins
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