Take off the masks: JOKER: FOLIE À DEUX
Where the first part camped in a mainstream cinema with bogus morals, Todd Phillips reinvents his sequel with uncompromising freedom, unleashes his artistic machinery by constantly playing the intermittency between a musical which is not one, an action film without action, a romance that rings hollow, and despair at the center of an entire project based on a man who seeks to free himself from his character. And there lies all the stunning beauty of the film, through its autobiographical angle, Arthur trying to escape the character of the Joker, it is Phillips fleeing the weight of success, Phillips who sets up as a middle finger this pathetic and shaky fable in the face with inordinate expectations and the inherent pressure of triumph. Instead of marking out his scenario and making it a show for all audiences, he isolates, confronts, a danger at every moment, placing his film in precariousness, on the edge of the precipice, with the sole aim of succeeding in grasping the he moment when finally, the unsympathetic Joaquin Phoenix and his grotesque faces drops the mask: equal to equal, face to face, Joker and his creator Todd Phillips succeed in the crazy challenge of turning off the light to give birth to the beauty of the natural , the shadow definitely takes the place of the body (recalling the short opening animated film).
In summary: Where everyone was excited about a sequel in the continuity of the first, Phillips takes us on the wrong foot by questioning the very meaning of his success, turning the table on an enjoyable and saving creative freedom. Pure happiness. 4/5
Joker: Folie à Deux by T.Phillips
Released October 2
Lone Warrior: THE APPRENTICE
In The ApprenticeAli Abbasi surprises his world by attacking the dangerous personality of Donald Trump in his young years as a cub on the verge of bringing the world to his feet. Before the world, he will put his wife, humiliated and raped (the great shocking scene of the film, motivating the attempt to ban the film by Trump) at his feet, his father whom he will remove from the family business. overwhelming with his alleged cowardice, his greatest support (let’s not talk about friendship here, an inaccessible definition for Trump) Roy Cohn who will make him climb all the ladder until stabbing him in the back. Therein lies all the relative interest of The Apprenticea performance film which offers a grandiloquent exchange of arms between two monstrous actors, Sebastian Stan facing Jeremy Strong, Trump/Cohn, the raw heart of a film which sorely lacks it. Yes, Trump is an absolutely detestable, manipulative man, devoid of any human sense, of empathy, dominated by capitalist greed, a monster of our time, adored here, vomited there, a ferocious beast who will abandon everything (including understood his dignity) to earn more. But did Abbasi need to shove it in our faces? Because by establishing Trump as an anti-hero, but a hero nonetheless, there is a sort of tragic glorification that will undeniably result from this, the dangerous game of victimization will inevitably take over this exit: the anti-Trump people will see this as a known truth , the pros a martyring pamphlet. Because although profoundly stupid, Trump is no less stupid than the people he leads.
In summary: Captivating, often disturbing, throughout we cannot stop asking ourselves the only valid question: why film, and impose on us what everyone already knows? Does such a character deserve our attention, on the dangerous edge of a form of morbid glorification? It’s up to you to answer it. 3/5
The Apprentice by A. Abbasi
Released October 9
Concord: NOT A WORD
It’s all a matter of suggestion here. A teenager traumatized and isolated by the brutal and ignoble death of one of his classmates (a simple portrait of the deceased strewn with wreaths upon her arrival at high school), a ghost mother, drowned in her rehearsals (she is a leader of (recognized orchestra, constantly harassed by a telephone that never stops ringing, everywhere, all the time), and a cold, concrete wall between them, impossible communication, a hatred even emerging in Lars at seeing his mother disconnected from suffering speechless, unable to say a word to his deep oozing scar. In a misty and sublime Morbihan land, Mahler resonating in telluric force penetrating the rock, the impossible duo sinks into mutual incomprehension. Until finally the words stop, and the gestures are born: an attentive look, a sudden attention, a liberating embrace. Still no words, but a silent rapprochement, the touch in liberation of a maternal love hitherto stillborn. There is in this humble German film an innate sense of detail which transports Hannah Slak’s direction into an almost religious sense of concord and mercy, a Protestant act of purity and distance to signify love. although unpronounceable, but emanating from bodies and not from speech.
In summary: A discreet and poignant film, silence is set up as a magnificent hymn to healing, to the quest for appeasement through gesture and understanding, rather than through words, with a sense of staging and astonishing detail. 3.5/5
Not a word the H. Slug
Released October 9
