from the book to the screen, a youth in scorched earth according to Nicolas Mathieu

THE “WORLD’S” OPINION – MUST SEE

Basically, a Goncourt vintage 2018, signed Nicolas Mathieu. In charge, Hugo Sélignac, talented and eclectic producer (BAC North, The Great Bath, Mandibles, The Kingdom…). On arrival, the fourth feature film by the twins Ludovic and Zoran Boukherma, 32 years old, trained with Luc Besson (Ecole de la Cité), prolix directors and twisters of the horror genre (Teddy2020 ; The Year of the Shark2022). Their new film, a 12 million euro order which makes them get down to business, earned its main actor, the talented Paul Kircher – more than noticed in The High School Student (2022), by Christophe Honoré, and The Animal Kingdom (2023), by Thomas Cailley – the prize for best male hopeful at the Venice Film Festival.

Heading east, then, for this adolescent novel, which takes place in the 1990s, in the imaginary commune of Heillange, in the shadow of disused blast furnaces, among a population impoverished by deindustrialization. The title of the novel, borrowed from a formula in the Bible, reflects the status of parents over the destiny of their own children. The young brothers – just to distinguish them from the Dardennes with whom they have little to do anyway – prune it quite a bit to concentrate on the essentials, which takes place over a few summers.

A few figures hold the upper hand in the narrative. Anthony Casati (Paul Kircher), teenager with extreme acne, leather jacket and cross bike stolen from dad, hair in his eyes, who gets bored with his cousin who is a little more cheeky than him and flirts with girls without real conviction. Anthony's parents, Hélène (Ludivine Sagnier) and Patrick (Gilles Lellouche), a fragile couple – she is bored at a hundred cents an hour, he drinks more and more, they meet up from time to time – earning popular environment and the economic stagnation of the region. Stéphanie (Angelina Woreth), the most coveted girl in the sector, beautiful, daughter of notability, unattainable. Finally Hacine (Sayyid El Alami), Anthony's antagonist, a small Arab dealer in the city, as bad as a moth, son of an exemplary father, crushed by his social status.

An American mythology

Over the course of a few years, the characters evolve. Anthony asserts himself and beautifies himself. Hélène and Patrick separate in pain. Stéphanie is aiming for a big school. Hacine returns enraged from Morocco where his father had sent him. However, the drama will have stagnated along two axes. Anthony's unrequited love for Stéphanie, the animosity never really extinguished between Anthony and Hacine. Between these invisible walls that the film makes carnally sensitive, the Boukherma brothers have chosen anti-naturalism. Enhancement of romantic tension. Desire on edge. Thrust of chromatic lights. Aestheticization of landscapes. Dive into an amniotic bath of music. Dream on (1973), d’Aerosmith, Run to the Hills (1982), d’Iron Maiden, I give you (1985), by Jean-Jacques Goldman, Nothing Else Matters (1991), by Metallica, is presented here as a treatise on musical sociology.

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