‘The Marching Band’ is in the vein of ‘The Full Monty’ or ‘Brassed Off’ in terms of the way it shows a community coming together to support a cause that has led to the dislocation and suffering of those in its midst. In the case of this French comedy there is a terminal illness dimension which makes this a poignant and moving drama which also navigates issues around class and belonging, though this time it adds a different layer in the form of a discovery by the talented classical music conductor Thibaut (Benjamin Lavernhe) who is in search of a bone marrow transplant donor that he has a biological brother who not only has a compatible bone marrow but also has an incipient penchant for music which becomes a bridge between these two strangers.

The brother is Jimmy (Pierre Lottin) who plays the trombone in his factory band, and as the factory is about to close this engenders inevitable animosities and conflicts. The film raises insightful questions to this end about whether we have innate talents and skills or whether these are filtered via the class and social relations we inhabit to the extent that we don’t always get to express ourselves in the way we can if we have the cultural and economic freedoms to do so.

The film itself is fairly pedestrian in its structure but it has enormous emotional heft in the way that it navigates the terminal illness of its lead and the power of music and community to make life worthwhile. We are afforded a glimpse into the ways in which the human spirit can rise above the exigencies of fate, and this is achieved by showing how, when life and death is in the balance, people from different walks of life, exemplified here by the disjuncture between two different types of orchestral bands, can come together to show their appreciation for someone who comes from outside their midst and who share a common humanity.

The film plays on tropes regarding the way blood may be thicker than water, but gives them a different emphasis by presenting us with a similar dynamic to the one employed by Mike Leigh in ‘Secrets and Lies’ of having two characters from totally different walks of life discovering that they have a similar familial bond even though they have been adopted and weren’t aware of each other’s existence until now.