Tunisian-born Abdellatif Kechiche would now appear to be fully integrated into the French filmmaking community. The success of his first two films, La Faute à Voltaire (2001) and especially L'Esquive (2004), which won a César for best script and best film, suggests that his future career will be guaranteed. The filmmaker's trajectory seems a perfect illustration of the utopian dream of French cinema by which anyone, no matter how much of an outsider, can find salvation through art. But Kechiche's work tells a very different story. Using canonical artefacts of French culture as markers, these films expose the many obstacles that confront those seeking integration into French society, and the systemic flaws that characterise life in France today. This study will analyse the portrayal of the tensions between inclusion and exclusion in each of Kechiche's films, notably in comparison with the more obviously `hardline' approach of Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche in Wesh wesh, qu'est-ce qui se passe? (2001). It will argue that Kechiche's use of traditional cultural artefacts is more than satirical: it is also a way of revitalising narrative, and a celebration of storytelling.
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