A snapshot of life for everyday workers on the streets of Paris. In the same year that he made Humain, Trop Humain, Louis Malle took his camera out on to the streets of a working-class neighbourhood of Paris to find out what was on the mind of its populace. Whereas his companion film featured little intervention from the director, here Malle is full of questions. The result is a barometer of the city’s political, social and cultural life. Ever the humanist, Place De La Republique finds Malle generous to a fault with his subjects and the film is often funny and never less than insightful in its portrait of the capital’s populace.
