“A People”, a faithful immersion in the epic of the Yellow Vests

Emmanuel Gras

CRITIQUE — On November 17, 2018, the Yellow Vests began a movement that would mark the history. In the documentary film “Un peuple”, the director Emmanuel Gras chooses to immerse himself in these collectives, for a story of part of the life of the Yellow Vests of Chartres, of the roundabouts in Paris, the first year of the movement.

The enthusiasm of the beginnings, the discovery of the collective struggle

Camera in hand, Emmanuel Gras follows the daily life of Agnès, Benoît, Nathalie, Allan… A group of Gilets jaunes from Chartres who are fully committed to the collective struggle. These people, until then isolated in their difficulties, gather at this roundabout to share their feelings of social injustice and their contempt for a power that is too far removed from them. One of the women explains that she calls her roundabout companions “the beggars”, because that is how she feels regarded by the ruling class.

This feeling of social injustice creates strength in these individuals who leave their homes every Saturday to brave the cold, mount sometimes risky actions, resist police intimidation, organize demonstrations of more than hundreds of people… These examples of involvement are accompanied by sincere testimonies, which allow us to give humanity, a face to this movement too often stigmatized by the media and reduced to its violence.

Images of war

The images of the demonstrations, although already widely broadcast in the media, carry us away, because we discover them from a new angle. The question of violence is not biased, the aggressiveness of the police is presented as much as that of some of the demonstrators. The camera follows the protagonists and we find ourselves in the center of the demonstration, in the heart of the action that almost evokes scenes of war. They show the reality on the ground without falling into sensationalism: no images of wounded people or blood, but barricades, jostling, stones thrown and received… The images are sufficient in themselves.

When contempt and ignorance are the only thing these protesters get from the government, violence is the only way for some to make themselves heard. But most of these people were not prepared for such confrontations. Agnès, one of the protagonists, confides that the images of the confrontation with the police, especially when she was stuck on the Étoile roundabout during Act II, were a trauma and remained in her mind long after the event.

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Attempts to structure the movement to the point of exhaustion

The immersive nature of the documentary allows us to understand the mechanisms of self-organization of the Yellow Vest movement. Their lack of structure has often been criticized, but it is also this freshness that has made this movement strong. Emmanuel Gras here raises the question of the practical difficulty of organizing a movement born spontaneously on a national scale. “Leaders” naturally appear within the group, but do they manage to avoid reproducing the democratic errors of those they criticize ?

“As the filming progressed, I understood that for me it was about bringing to life the inner vibration of a popular movement, with all its harmonious and chaotic aspects,” explains the documentary filmmaker.

In “Un peuple”, Emmanuel Gras films the vital energy that drives these individuals, their strength and their humanity, without wanting to hide the moments of doubt, fear, wandering or incomprehension, which also exist. It is not a question of demonizing or angelizing the Yellow Vests, only of trying to make a realistic portrait of them.

Immortalizing communication problems

The documentary captures conversations between the main actors of the Yellow Vests group and people outside their movement. Faced with the boss of a large brand or members of the political party “La République en marche”, we see the difficulty for these rebellious citizens to make themselves heard and understood. Each of these discussions highlights the differences in perceptions of the life and misery of the Yellow Vests.

Despite the impact of Covid, the movement continues and sometimes takes other forms. The documentary does justice to the sincere commitment of these individuals determined to make things happen. The two years since the end of the Yellow Vests, however, reveal to what extent the reasons for their anger remain just as relevant, if not more so.

Un peuple, 1h45min, a documentary by Emmanuel Gras, in theaters February 23, 2022.

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