Little Jaffna: a first long live, rhythmic and colorful (critic)

A Franco-Tamoul gangster film that is inspired by James Gray as much as spectacular action scenes from Kollywood.

It all starts with a cuff. In the heart of Paris, two gangs compete in the street without retaining their blows. Welcome to Little Jaffna, Tamil district of the capital, already in the heart of the eponymous short film of Lawrence Valin, awarded in Clermont-Ferrand in 2018 but also … in Kollywood, the Bollywood in southern India, where cinema is lived as an extraordinary experience. After this punch entry, the camera will follow Michael, a young cop infiltrated into a criminal group to try to drop his boss, Aya (Vela Ramamoorthy) accused of diverting money to Sri Lanka in order to feed a thirty conflict. With, in the background, the end of the war between the local army and the tigers, a separatist movement fighting for the independence of the north of the country. Immersed in this secret community, the protagonist will gradually question his own identity, he who, like most of the gang, was born after the start of clashes, but lives on a daily basis the impact of war and exile.

Born in France and raised by his Indian grandmother, Michael is attracted to the world he must infiltrate, while knowing that he cannot be fully part of it. By a multitude of ideas as simple as it is effective (the birth of the hero who symbolizes his double identity …), Valin develops this mixture of genres and cultures in its staging. He draws from the best of Italian-American or Korean thrillers to mix them in colors and excessively intense rhythm of Sri Lankan cinema. An impressive vitality emerges. And if certain twists and turns may seem too big to be true, we let ourselves be embarked on this world that we know little, by sticking as close as possible to this epoching character, who is little expressed but opens big eyes and ears, observing this community with a mixture of fear and curiosity. Dotted with shock scenes with Tarantino or Bong Joon-Ho, who know how to mix peaks of violence and humor, Little Jaffna The intimate portrait of a young man is first and foremost revealed, the mission entrusted to him has everything impossible. A soft-a-line observation in the direct line of The night belongs to usassumed reference of this first long long thought as well as orchestrated.

De Lawrence Valin. With Lawrence Valin, Radhika Sarathkumar, Marilou Aussilloux… Duration 1h39. Released April 30, 2025