An aging shoe-shining gentleman takes a young male refugee under his wing in the port town of Le Havre.
Every inch the bourgeois marxist romance: inter-ethnic proletarian unity against the faceless, aggressive "system",
our shoe-shiner's past as a successful artist in bohemian Paris - and guess what? His name is Marcel Marx!
Despite the predictable, politically-correct storyline, the film does impress; lead actor André Wilm's quiet earnestness is endearing, and the director's instinctive eye for characterful downbeat locales is undiminished. Above all it's the the clear and distinctive kitschy tone-poem photography which wins the day here.
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