CINEMA: 35 Shots of Rum

This small French charmer is full of silences, pauses and scenes where nothing much happens at all, but it oozes a comforting Gallic ease, like the shrug of a shoulder, a cloud of Gauloise smoke and the chink of shot glasses.

The main storyline centres on a widower (Alex Descas) who lives with his daughter in a block of flats where one neighbour has secretly been in love with him for years, while the young man in the penthouse spends his inheritance aimlessly travelling the globe.

The characters drink endless cups of coffee and rum, eat their steamed rice in companionable silence, or simply watch the trains go by. Although their lives are unremarkable what director Claire Denis has managed to do is to capture perfectly a slice of French life in all its banal detail.

Were aliens to watch this film it would tell them more about a certain section of French society than they would ever be able to glean from shots of the Eiffel Tower, the Moulin Rouge or the Pompidou centre, and the fact you leave the cinema liking these people so much is tribute to the movie’s big heart.

Dee Pilgrim