Cinema releases: “Their children after them”, “The choice”, “At work!”

“Their children after them”

The scorching summer of a bored teenager who falls in love for the first time. It is August 1992, Anthony is 14 years old, and hanging out on the edge of a lake with his cousin, in the heart of a lost valley in eastern France. It’s there that he meets Stéphanie, for whom he falls in love at first sight. That same evening, she invites the two teenagers to a party and, to go, Anthony borrows his father’s motorcycle, a sacrilegious gesture that will turn his entire existence upside down. This adaptation by twin brothers Ludovic and Zoran Boukherma of a novel by Nicolas Mathieu, Prix Goncourt 2018, is structured as an initiatory story on which the menacing and constantly palpable shadow of tragedy falls.

Above all, it is a film which knows how to place itself at the height of the gaze of its hero, this Anthony to whom Paul Kircher gives a mind-blowing presence, confirming his status as the best young actor in France, after “The High School Student” and “The Animal Kingdom,” where he was already perfect. The film is him. He is in almost every shot, and condenses all the unpredictability of the story, all the fragility of the characters, all the sweetness of his young age as well. Magnified by this aerial and free staging which determines the style of a film with discreet lyrical flights – since “Teddy”, the Boukherma brothers have taken to the bottle – he advances like a hero freed from the constraints of the world, leading us in his quiet revolt. A must!

Note: ***

•= hateful, °= at your own risk, *= good, **= interesting, ***= excellent, ****= masterpiece

“Get to work!”

François Ruffin is smart. Member of the environmentalist group in the National Assembly, troublemaker and former candidate for La France insoumise, he sometimes goes behind the camera and makes fun of the world of French employers. We remember “Thank you boss!” and his crusade to make the voice of a family made redundant heard by Bernard Arnault. Approach comparable to that of Michael Moore.

In any case he does it again in “Get to work!”by proposing to the right-wing lawyer, jurist, and TV columnist Sarah Saldmann, who had made comments damning the unemployed, precarious workers, minimum wage earners and people taking sick leave for a cold or sore throat to be “ of the glandus, of the assisted, of the lazy people”, an immersion in this France that she belittled. The result is quite funny. Co-signed by Gilles Perret, who holds the camera, Ruffin puts himself on stage, gently mocking the young woman, who perfectly assumes her status as a contemptuous privileged person, dismissing her in his remarks as paradoxical as they are disrespectful. Satires are rare in documentaries. This perfectly fulfills its objective.

Note: **

•= hateful, °= at your own risk, *= good, **= interesting, ***= excellent, ****= masterpiece

“The choice”

Alone at the wheel of his car, at night, Vincent Lindon makes calls and has to solve various problems. One concerns a construction site and a concrete pour which must take place the following morning. The other plunges into the heart of a personal drama.

Without ever leaving the interior of the vehicle, filmmaker Gilles Bourdos signs the remake of a British film, “Locke”, which Steven Knight, with Tom Hardy in the role now played by Lindon, had directed in 2014. The usefulness of refilming this story is not immediately obvious. The suspense lasts for about half an hour, but as soon as the stakes are revealed, we lose interest a little in what is really going to happen. As for the conclusion, it is almost embarrassing and ridiculous. Not very essential.

Note: *

•= hateful, °= at your own risk, *= good, **= interesting, ***= excellent, ****= masterpiece

“A universal language”

Here is a tale that has little connection with those that hatch during the end of year celebrations. From Montreal to Winnipeg, this surreal comedy by Matthew Rankin, whose numerous other films we are not familiar with, is dominated by the absurd from the first to the last shot.

The return of the hero, played by the filmmaker himself, to his native Winnipeg, where curiously everyone now speaks Persian, sets the tone for an indefinable film which won the grand prize at the last GIFF (Geneva International Film Festival). . He had previously triumphed at the Fortnight in Cannes. Will it manage to surpass its status as a festival hit? We wish him that.

Note: **

•= hateful, °= at your own risk, *= good, **= interesting, ***= excellent, ****= masterpiece

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