Movies don't have to fill in every blank space

"35 Shots of Rum" (35 Rhums) is one of those movies that got no distribution, little notice, and few reviews, though the reviews were all positive, and with good reason. It's another in the line of recent low-budget European indies that focus on ordinary, generally workingclass, people and their lives and struggles - in this case, a black community in the Paris exurbs. The protagonist, Lionel, is a Paris Metro driver (is his name meant to be whimsical?), lives with his 20ish daughter, who's very devoted to him, but who needs to be independent and find her own life. Pretty much the only other characters are the daughter (Jo)'s boyfriend, Noe, and Gabrielle, a taxi driver who's really interested in Lionel - but he's not that into her. They all live in the same modest highrise. BTW: Great, beautiful shots of the Paris Metro, many from the motorman's viewpoint. It's a very simple, quiet movie - much less action and tension than in the more plot-driven works in the same vein (e.g., Revanche, L'enfant, Cache, 4 Days....), much more interior, more focused on personality, and it leaves a lot between the lines, including the ending comes abruptly and remains somewhat ambiguous. But movies are powerful enough - they don't have to fill in every blank space, they can sometimes work best if they make us think and come toward them, figuring stuff out for ourselves. 35 Shots (by Claire Denis) takes on people and issues and feelings that have fallen way outside the scope of commercial films, and even outside the scope of American indies, which cover a much narrower social and demographic range than the Europeans do. They may not be the greatest of the recent European films - maybe at times too subtle for its own good, and it veers offcourse in the the visit to Germany - but, if you haven't noticed, helped by the easy accessibility of DVDs, we're in the midst of a new new wave of great European films.