‘Gagarine’ is a magical movie set in a run-down French housing project.

Gagarine, as the structure was generally regarded, held terrific assure when it opened in 1963 in Ivry-sur-Seine. A pre-credit history sequence shows footage of the dedication, with Gagarin himself in attendance and 1000’s cheering the prospect of cost-effective housing. But 50 % a century later on, the facade was pockmarked and strewn with graffiti, and the immigrant residents for the most component complained about the unfit ailments.

Not so for 16-12 months-outdated resident Youri (Alseni Bathily), who goals of adhering to in his namesake’s orbit. Youri’s mom has taken up with a new boyfriend and left her son to fend for himself. But he’s happy on his personal, on the lookout by a telescope at the moon — and seeing what his buddies Diana (Lyna Khoudri of “The French Dispatch”) and Houssam (Jamil McCraven) are up to. With their assistance, Youri attempts to deliver the crumbling dinosaur up to code. They rewire faulty elevators and substitute burned-out lights, scavenging for components from junkman Gérard (Denis Lavant). Irrespective of all their challenging do the job, Gagarine fails inspection, but Youri plans to remain guiding as prolonged as achievable.

If the junkyard suggests a minimal-spending budget edition of the “Star Wars” trash-compactor scene, the industrial placing evokes David Lynch’s “Eraserhead,” which is not so not likely a resonance: Lynch’s aspect debut was likewise about an imaginative youthful male trapped in a bleak landscape.

In this dilapidated world, Youri and his friends uncover joy just by using a bicycle. But Youri has better ambitions. With Gagarine’s sky-higher elevator shafts by now suggesting a significant spaceship, the teenager improbably begins to establish his very own craft. But can he really acquire off?

The initial half of “Gagarine” plays like a neorealist drama, and Victor Seguin’s gorgeous cinematography swoops all around the broken home with a bird’s-eye look at, gracefully pursuing Youri and his crew as they battle with their quixotic job. The exact camerawork that captures residents’ gritty lives prepares the viewer for the magic realism of its last act. But there is just as significantly enchantment in what for most individuals would be a dreary placing. The most haunting scene might be of Youri and Diana sending Morse code messages to each other one lonely night time.

Liatard and Trouilh, who co-wrote the script with Benjamin Charbit, were commissioned to make documentary portraits of Gagarine citizens in 2014, when the premises were to start with specific for demolition, and spent quite a few years getting to know the people and their dreams. (I suspect a much longer edition of this movie — in which we obtained to know Youri’s neighbors far better — wouldn’t have been amiss.) The filmmakers were encouraged by the forbidding Brutalist architecture, whose lengthy corridors and cramped residences Youri navigates like an explorer hoping to find his way out of a maze.

While the directors give “Gagarine” a completely recognized perception of put, its ensemble cast provides it the sensation of authentic daily life. In his first film part, Bathily (whose father grew up in the eponymous housing complex) was an unlikely alternative the portion of Youri would appear to have to have a nerdy, 98-pound weakling, staring passively at the stars. But Bathily is designed of stronger stuff. Athletic nevertheless delicate, he successfully conveys equally youthful alienation and a identified, Diy competence.

On one amount, “Gagarine” is a story about goals of a superior everyday living. At the same time, its spirited hero poignantly demonstrates a seemingly trite but time-tested truism: Be it at any time so humble, there’s no place like household.

Unrated. At Landmark’s E Road Cinema and the Cinema Arts Theatre. Incorporates strong language. In French with subtitles. 97 minutes.