At the movies: This documentary from the director of 12 Years a Slave is an unforgettable experience

Three years after his powerful mini-series Small Ax, which was supposed to be presented at the canceled 2020 edition of the Cannes Film Festival, Steve McQueen is back on the Croisette in special screenings of the Cannes Premiere section with a poignant documentary that finally arrives. in cinemas.

The British director, who successfully crowned 12 Years a Slave, Shame and Hunger, offers a unique experience: Occupied City, a documentary that presents intersecting portraits of two generations of Amsterdammers, one under German occupation during World War II and the other. Contemporary affected by the coronavirus epidemic.

Between the past and the present, there is a huge mirror for an informed society

The longest film presented at the 76th Cannes Film Festival, at 4 hours 06, Occupied City is a special and hypnotic immersion. The British director chooses to compare the city of his heart and two eras of adoption. His sharp but sober gaze emphasizes the entire vitality of the city in constant mutation and constant movement.

It captures everything that animates the capital, from the most “ordinary” experiences to the most spectacular: intimate moments, family walks, lovers’ kisses or conversations and corrections of the older generation, between demonstrations and social movements, official political announcements and results. A pandemic of a lifetime.

Inspired by the book Atlas of the occupied city (Amsterdam 1940-1945) Directed by his wife Bianca Stigter, Steve McQueen takes the camera on a postcard love letter-style journey through the streets of Amsterdam, a major tourist and cultural city with a rich historical past.

Few documentaries capture with such candor, frontality and magnetism the intersections of a solitary existence that collides fatally with the rhythm of the passage of time. And it is another time that contrasts with these beautiful images: the Age of Horrors, the period of Nazi occupation during World War II.

Following the information and sequence of the book, the documentary takes us from address to address on the streets of Amsterdam thanks to the voice of Melanie Hyams, who narrates the brutality of the Jewish residents who lived at said addresses. In our time and full of life.

Between denunciation, deportation, humiliation, intimidation to fatal outcome, each last life story tells us another part of modern life thanks to brutal division and paradoxically coherent connection, thanks to a thoughtful montage that compels us more than strange sensations. Between the awkwardness, the sadness, but also the knowledge that an era is over.

But if we talk about a time that no longer exists, there is still a shadow that hangs over Amsterdam and haunts every corner of it. The occupied city feels like a testimony of the past, a duty to remember and a reflection of time and the future. Even if we crammed a lot of information into four hours, we can only applaud Steve McQueen’s training in style and observation.

The documentary “Occupied City” is in theaters.