Marseille reaffirms its status as one of the most dangerous cities in France with “Shéhérazade,” director Jean-Bernard Marlin’s accomplished feature debut.
But its reputation for crime and poverty makes all the more affecting the tentative relationship between a troubled 17-year-old boy just sprung from juvenile detention and the title character, the teenage prostitute he falls in love with.
Shooting in a color-streaked vérité style and coaxing terrific performances from his non-pro cast, Marlin clearly has a promising future ahead.
What keeps ‘Shéhérazade’ from ranking higher in the pantheon of streetwise French crime dramas is the story’s overall familiarity.
But the question of whether the love between two lost teenagers can survive such a miserable environment provides more than enough emotional pull, provided that audiences can find this 2018 Cannes Film Festival gem on Netflix.“Shéhérazade” is a feature-length riff on Marlin’s similarly Marseille-set “La Fugue” (aka “The Runaway
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