Rooftops of Paris in the movies: Un monde sans pitié - 1989

Un monde sans pitié by Eric Rochant, 1989, with Hippolyte Girardot, Mireille Perrier and Yvan Attal.

Winner of the Prix Louis Delluc and the César for Best First Feature, the film was a critical and public success. Un monde sans pitié emerged in the late 1980s as an emblematic generational film, reflecting the twilight of ideologies and a loss of bearings.

According to Eric Rochant, "It was a film about the historical situation we were in. The collapse of ideologies has led to a real suspicion of systems of thought, a fear of referring to ideals. We escape the murderous consequences of dogma, but we lack grand designs. Basically, you're depressed. The question I asked was: "What's left for us? Later, with Vive la République, I asked: 'What can we do with it?

The disillusioned Hippo appeared as a symptom of a prolonged adolescence, immature because anti-liberal, in search of a new way of life.