Venice Review: ‘Athena’ by Romain Gavras

The title of the competition at the Venice Film Festival, conceived as a Greek tragedy for the present moment Athena There is a flood, a flood, a waterfall of anger, rage, and disappointment against the reality of life for a certain group of French families. Most societies have such conditions, some more severe than others, but here the vengeance of pent-up anger appears with a singular intensity and a long duration that is difficult to overcome.

Immediately after the 2019 Oscar-nominated sensation miserablesAlso rarely seen by outsiders, set in the eastern suburbs of Paris, directed by Romain Gavras and co-written with Elias Belkedard. miserables Director Ladj Ly uses raw adrenaline and immersive cameras to immerse you in a modern classic drama. A Netflix-powered movie grabs you by the throat and lets you barely breathe.

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If they were exposed to a few random moments of this movie, most citizens of the world would never have dreamed of seeing Paris, based mainly on dark faces, impersonal apartment towers, unconventional vocabulary, apparent poverty and a constant sense of danger. . Indeed, new transportation improvements are being made in the area, but the filmmakers’ interest certainly lies in the suffocating pressures, marginalization, lack of opportunity and explosive potential that remains, at least, as dire as the film portrays.

Athena, let’s not forget, was the Greek goddess of wisdom and war. For the moment, however, the smart part of the equation is being pushed aside by the encouragement of conflict. As shown here, the people of the dignified community are essentially helpless, their lives lived in real cages, cramped flats in modern, soulless housing projects. Just 10 miles from the center of Paris, trapped, desperate, angry teenagers.

All this is judged by the filmmakers who need no explanation; For those at or above the borderline, all that matters is anger and frustration. Gavras, son of the famous Z Director Kosta Gavras and the creator of numerous music videos, short films and commercials, as well as two previous feature films, take the ball to Ladj Ly and instantly raise the tension tenfold. A long, flowing opening shot spans from one building to the entire neighborhood, revealing a stunning visual: “We’re crazy as hell and we can’t stand it anymore!” Spielberg’s West Side Story It looks like a children’s play on the street.

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The power and engagement of this series is phenomenal; A spectacle made possible by great imagination, chronometer, and newly developed technical resources, it is a cinematic spectacle that is perhaps, but undeniably impressive. It’s so powerful and extreme that you wonder where it can go from here.

With this technology, the answer is: everywhere and nowhere. The seemingly limitless Gavras and cinematographer Matthias Bucard create a steady stream of urban speed that pushes the viewer and the film into a variety of indoor and outdoor spaces, constantly, though not always, as if in real time. The action takes place on the verge of oblivion, yet it is still clearly choreographed (and perhaps visually digitally enhanced) to keep the action flowing with a fluid sense of purpose.

Tragedy came after the youngest of four siblings died in an apparent police incident. The middle brother Abdel (Dali Bensalahi), a soldier in the French army, returns home from the front and remains calm and demands that justice find its own way. His older brother, Moktar (Owassini Embarek), is a selfish merchant focused on his own dark business.

But then there is Karim (Sami Slimane), a young and impetuous man whose instinct is to rise up in the streets and burn everything down; Revenge is necessary and it is needed now. Arguments, hurt feelings, and violent impulses ensue, and the resulting film is screams and cries and cries, movement and chaos for the lack of a tangible or useful way to resolve the tragedy. Anger and despair permeate every scene of the movie.

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dramatic, Athena It unfolds more as a series of tense and difficult situations than a story. The most important thing for filmmakers is a sense of immersion. The shooting, which lasts for minutes, significantly increases the feeling of claustrophobia and the feeling of being in a place with no exit. Restless and relentless, the camera moves up and down, in and out, up to the faces; The style resolutely achieves its goal of making the environment feel irresistible.

But it also has an understated elegance; It is not the raw yet energetic style of French New Wave directors, or the hand-in-hand of Cassavetes and New York street documentarians from half a century ago. On the contrary, there is real splendor here, and the long shots are carefully planned and full of surprises; Extended sequences inspired by Russian director Mikhail Kalatozov’s 1964 landmark i am cubaIt immediately comes to mind when filmed in Havana.

Clearly, a great deal of technical skill went into achieving a seamless flow of footage throughout the film; Fans of ambitious staging and adventurous one-shot cinema will be amazed and impressed by what Gavras and Boucar have accomplished here.

Sometimes it would be foolish to deny that the style is not predominant and actually obscures a sparse story, or that the dramatic pitch is too high to sustain the running time of a feature film. Screams and screams dominate the movie. But 97 minutes pass in the blink of an eye, and there are a series of surprising moments that make you wonder how the filmmakers were able to shoot such intense, long shots, all adding to the tension and anger. It’s not a style that works for most movies, but it takes you to every moment of this movie.