Le Gang des bois du temple, a detective drama directed by Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche, arrives at the cinema on September 6. Don’t miss this astonishing feature film about a daring robbery based on a true story.
Since Wesh wesh what is happening?, Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche, 57, has established himself as one of the most brilliant mavericks of French cinema. On September 6, the director is back behind the camera with Le Gang des bois du temple, his 7th feature film.
The plot introduces us to Mr. Pons (Régis Laroche), a retired soldier living in the working-class district of Bois du Temple. When he is burying his mother, his neighbor Baby, who belongs to a group of gangsters from the city, is about to rob the convoy of a wealthy Arab prince.
The film is based on a news item that occurred in 2014. A heavily armed gang from Seine-Saint-Denis attacked a black van carrying the personal belongings of an Arab prince, one of the richest men in the world. The robbery takes place on a slip road of the A1 motorway near the Porte de La Chapelle.
“The mastermind of the coup was a Gypsy from Val-d’Oise, whose uncle was one of the great figures of banditry… For him, it was both a family tribute and a real challenge to rise to his height. And he had associated himself with a band of lascars from the city of Temple Woods. I had found this incident edifying and had, so to speak, kept it in reserve until the assassination. , in 2018, of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul”explains Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche.
The filmmaker was flabbergasted both by the brutality of the act and by the impunity of such bloody violence, “committed by high dignitaries so powerful that they believe themselves above the law and human justice. We have decided to mix these two miscellaneous facts and make a new scenario.”
Note that the city of Bois du Temple is located in Clichy-sous-Bois, to the north-east of Seine-St-Denis. “It was built at the end of the 1960s on swamps in the middle of the woods, very close to an old chapel, a spring reputed to be miraculous and three crosses erected nearby”says the director.
PARIS IN THE SOUTH
However, the film was not shot in the Paris region. The Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche team set up its cameras in Bordeaux in the city of Grand Parc, itself built on former marshes. The team also shot in Marseille. For the director, Marseille was perfect “for its night lights, its highways which, after flying over the city, plunge into underground tunnels, dark and eerie.”
“In short, whether in the suburbs of Paris, Bordeaux or Marseille, urban territories resemble each other and constantly reinvent themselves. Crossing rivers and spreading through valleys, they fray on the sides of mountains and emancipate themselves from city centers, transformed into a museum of attraction for tourists from all over the world.”
The Alchemists
RETURN TO POPULAR NEIGHBORHOODS
With Le Gang des bois du temps, Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche reconnects with stories taking place in working-class neighborhoods, 20 years after Wesh wesh what’s happening? According to the filmmaker, “There are still plenty of cinemas in these neighborhoods! This is where a large part of the proletariat resides, populated by minorities from all over the world.”
According to the director, this proletariat is no longer the same as before, when it was structured around associations, parties and unions.
“It is more fragmented, more isolated now that it is deprived of essential political tools and divided by reactionary and nauseating ideologies. However, unlike the power and money-hungry oligarchies that terrify us by fomenting wars, famines and the worst of atrocities, this proletariat always dreams of a peaceful and fraternal life. People have simple lives, simple aspirations… They live and they die together, like the members of the gang of the Temple Woods”explains the director.
The Temple Woods Gang hit theaters on September 6.