Jessica, an overzealous American cop, transforms the desert she is charged with policing into Arizona nightmare…
Lonely Jessica Combey never laughs. Not even when – sudden desire – she decides to get fucked quickly, by paying a few dollars, by a corpulent gringo that she has left at the corner of the street – not without hooding him during the round trip to the checkout to the bed – you never know what the second-hand gigolo might say. Did she cum? Not sure: his face will remain stony during coitus.
This is the entry into the matter of The Walla Belgian film shot in the States, in English, by Philippe Van Leeuw, 70 years old, a native of Brussels established in Paris, known in the industry as a cinematographer. at least as much as as a screenwriter and director. Laden with awards, his last film dates back to 2017: A Syrian familywhose action took place in Damascus during the civil war. Released in 2009, his previous film, The day God went on a journeytook place in Kigali during the Rwandan genocide: filmmaker Van Leew definitely likes to shoot far away.
Build the wall !
To return to The Wallthe fairly chilling young woman (Luxembourg actress Vicky Krieps, excellent by the way, took English lessons for the role) turns out to be Federal Agent of the US Border Patrolsthese Yankee border guards who patrol Arizona, at the foot of the separation wall between the States and Mexico. The only female in this environment of (necessarily dominant) males, Jessica Combey does not, it is true, have a fun life: her sister-in-law and apparently only friend, suffering from cancer, is at home. article of death… Patriotic to the point of fanaticism, dressed to the nines in her uniform despite her intimate cracks, the soldier in the ponytail does not fail to invoke God and his saints to support her in the ordeal of everyday life.
Also read: Sketch of a twilight
No spoilers
Really on the nerves, the Combey! Combined with her libidinal frustration, her vehement nationalism will push her to the last extremes: frantic hunter of these illegal migrants who try at their own risk in the oven of this hostile desert, she suspects the local Amerindians of being smugglers: Mike Wilson (native who plays himself here) and his son Zick. Considering themselves legitimate in their ancestral territory, they never cross via the legal border post, but via a path known only to them. And here they are, despite themselves, involved in a bloody border incident that is tragically aggravated by the presence of this trigger-happy woman, walled in hatred. Let’s say no more.
There are two contradictory (but not incompatible) readings to be made of The Wall : either the film is the self-righteous trial of the corruption, the brutality, the impunity which reigns in these areas within the breed of executioners (with white skin) of the ignominious American law; or he depicts, through the unsympathetic character of Jessica, a specific case which, in these times, will not fail to scandalize the watchdogs of the wokealways on the alert when the Woman falls from her pedestal. Philippe Van Leeuw thus balances between virtuous posture and assumed risk of banishment by the overactive Amazons of militant feminism.
Duration: 1h36
