Tournees Francophone Film Festival: “Une Vie Violente”

With his second feature as a writer-director, renowned Corsican actor
Thierry de Peretti delivers a revealing look at the political and criminal
turmoil that have long plagued his native island, at times rivalling
Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather in terms of emotional richness
and narrative complexity. Set in the 1990s, a period when Corsica
hovered on the edge of civil war, A Violent Life follows Stéphane, a
Corsican student who gets sucked into radical nationalist circles and
eventually goes underground to join the armed struggle. De Peretti’s
great achievement is the empathy with which he treats the young
man’s misguided but in some ways justified actions: while the out-
come of his decisions is unarguably tragic, the film provides a genuine
understanding of the conditions that push young people to take up
arms. And while what makes A Violent Life so powerful is clearly the
director’s knowledge of a specific socio-political context, its insights
about nationalism and insurrection are applicable to many situations
throughout history and in the present day. As such, it is essential
viewing.