“Athena” Review: Director Romain Gavras Ignites Paris Projects with Technical Virtuosity

With his impetuous first feature film of 2019, The miserableDirector Ladge Lee evoked urban unrest, police brutality and worsening social and racial inequality in Paris. Suburban drama The Haine Dropped into the 21st century, his belly is swollen with righteous anger and indignation. Ly is the writer and producer of the film Roman Gavras. Athena, which is both a companion to these films and a ray of their themes. Where the previous works were built in an impressive crescendo of violence, Athena it is a live grenade that takes off at full speed and increases its intensity with a virtuoso technique.

This last factor will come as no surprise to the work of Gavras, son of famed Greek director Costa-Gavras, who has made his mark with his dynamic music videos for the likes of Kanye West, Jay-Z and MIA. Its third function is an important tone. departure from its predecessor, the world is yoursin which the director’s visual mastery turned into a gangster comedy.

Athena – which will stream on Netflix from September 23, after its premiere in the Venice Film Festival’s main competition – takes its title from the housing estates, where nearly all the pacing of the action unfolds at a breakneck pace. (Filming took place in Evry, a southern suburb of Paris, in the brutalist architecture of the Parc aux Lièvres designs of the 1960s.)

But the title also hints at the story’s inspiration from Greek tragedy, with fraternal bonds torn apart by conflicting loyalties and blind rage fueled by a thirst for revenge. It’s a tough watch at times, but one that keeps the audience firmly engaged.

Written by Gavra, Lee and Elias Belkadar, the film opens with a police press conference. French paratrooper Abdel (Dali Bensalah) has been called from the front to calm down while an investigation is carried out to identify the man responsible for the death of his 13-year-old brother Idir, seen in a video that has gone viral. A news clip is heard calling it the third incident of police brutality in recent months. The deceased boy’s grandfather was an Algerian who fought with distinction in the French army.

The solemn, almost liturgical music with rich choral motifs from Gener8ion (a multidisciplinary collaborative project between Gavras and electronic producer and composer Benoît Heitz, aka Surkin) is interrupted when a young man throws a Molotov cocktail into the bustling crowd, causing chaos. It is overrun by riot shields and a violent mob loots the station, shouting “We are the police now!” Its leader, who threw the explosive, gradually identifies himself as Karim (Sami Slimane), Abdel’s younger brother.

Gavras and cinematographer Mattia Bucard create the illusion of a long, continuous shot with impressive skill and incredibly complex camera choreography. Other vehicles carrying weapons, including weapon lockers.

Gavras infuses the footage with a kinetic urgency for the fight scenes, Karim barking orders and making decisions while the troublemakers, most of whom appear to be in their late teens or early 20s, cheer to defend their turf from the organized police. As the rebels, entrenched behind Athena’s fortress-like walls, vow to wage war against the Federation until they reveal the names of Idir’s attackers, the police launch a counterattack designed to systematically weaken their ranks.

While Abdel tries to contact Karim and fails at first, his older brother Moktar (Owassini Embarek) fights a mob of angry youths who threaten his drug dealing business and evacuate the sprawling compound along with most of its residents. He refuses to supply them with weapons, despite Karim’s fervent pleas.

I like The miserableThe dense action and fast pace, again taking place in real time, leaves little room for character or political perspective. But the three surviving brothers are marked by clear differences. This leads to heated friction when Karim finally confronts Abdel and spits, “You’re a military whore from France.” A bee lighting a powder keg between the two is what to do with a terrified rebel hostage, baby-faced police officer Jerome (Anthony Bajon), who has been wounded by a police bullet.

As he grows more desperate, Abdel crumbles and loyalties shift, and the stakes rise dramatically, as a former jihadist and ex-Sébastien (Alexis Manent, the shrewd police The miserable) signed up to use their explosives expertise. This character’s transformation, from medicated vertigo as he plays in the backyard or conflict in the community nursery to dogged determination as he begins to methodically manipulate the gas tanks, is chilling. It also signals the end of any chance of resolution without further loss of life.

While the film’s emphatic style can become cloying, and its attention to technique risks overshadowing the interpersonal drama, there is an operatic grandeur here that never ceases, giving the violence ever-increasing power. Even without knowing much about the history of the brothers’ bond, the losses they suffer are clearly captured by the pervasive atmosphere of anger and hopelessness.

Newspaper clippings show how the violence spread beyond the Barrio, with mosques on fire, right-wing anti-immigrant attacks and solidarity protests across the country. And there are images that underscore the drama’s progression in surprising ways: Abdel wears a kameez at his mother’s insistence that he join the Muslim Brotherhood in a room where they pray for Idir; An old man on a white horse waves an Algerian flag; The insurgents were forced to change into their underwear and exit the building, revealing themselves to be boys who were approaching puberty.

The actors move like fireworks in melee, with Bensalah and newcomer Slimani making a particularly strong impression. But it’s the film’s haunting visual poetry that draws him in. Gavras clearly explored the physicality of great siege and combat films, making extensive use of wide shots to mark both the immersive aspect and the immediacy that puts us in the middle of things.

In a bravura sequence, Bucar’s camera takes us inside walls, narrow corridors and staircases as protesters and police storm buildings as a dam breaks, releasing an avalanche of human bodies into the spaces below. These scenes unfold in wide shots that capture the full scale of the projects as the battle continues for 24 hours. If you can get used to its frantic, feverish pace, Athena It’s the sustained impact of a movie that will leave you bruised, right up to the startling reveal of its coda.