Le Gang des Bois du Temple

Three men are taking a walk between the apartment blocks of a suburban housing estate, feeding pigeons. They belong to a gang of small-time crooks who pulled off a major coup during the armed robbery of a Saudi Arabian prince’s car. Their conversation revolves around acquiring a bionic prosthetic hand, a long-cherished dream that the stolen money can make a reality. They don’t yet know that they are being pursued. The tranquillity of the scene stands in stark contrast to the later shootout with cold-blooded killers and establishes a space beyond the genre conventions of the classic gangster film – as does the stunning performance of a chanson by Breton singer Annkrist at a funeral service at the beginning of the film. The prince’s ecstatic dance to raï music in a nightclub, during which his bodyguard fails to notice that he’s being watched, also forms part of this poetics of digression. At the end, when a neighbour who is friends with the gang looks out from his balcony at children and pigeons playing, while the verticals of the banlieue architecture glow in the autumn light, everything is peaceful again. (Birgit Kohler)