When insects take over
In 2020, a dark year for cinema as marked by the Covid-19 pandemic, Just Philippot would have presented his first feature film, The cloud, at the Cannes Film Festival. Unfortunately the festival was canceled and that was it Angoulême Francophone Film Festival in August 2020 then in Gérardmer Fantastic Film Festival end of January 2021 that The cloud could be discovered, before its national release on June 16, 2021.
In the words of the director, The cloud it presents itself as an “agricultural thriller” that ends with a “disaster film”. And in fact, The cloud stands out for its subtle mix of genres, using a realistic social and economic context to set up a violent environmental catastrophe, masterfully playing with horror movie codes.
Good news for fans of the genre since then The cloud coming to Netflix on January 5, 2024.
The synopsis of The cloud is the next one: It is difficult for Virginie to reconcile her life as a farmer with that of a single mother. To save her farm from bankruptcy, she dives headfirst into the edible grasshopper business. But little by little her children no longer recognize her: Virginie seems to develop a strange obsessive bond with her insects…
A multidimensional horror film
Suliane Brahim, French actress and member of the Comédie-Française, plays Virginie in The cloud. Her two children are played by Marie Narbonne and Raphaël Romand, and Sofian Khammes plays Karim, close to Virginie. As she also did for her next feature film, Acidreleased in 2023, Just Philippot focuses here a family unit in difficultywho will find himself grappling with a global phenomenon, the dangers of which far exceed those of this family.
In The cloud, Virginie is struggling to make her farm profitable. Isolated, exhausted by her professional activity and her duties as a single mother, despised and bullied by the men around her, she discovers a way to increase the yield of her grasshopper farm: give them a little blood. In fact, when one day he inadvertently wounds himself, he realizes that the locusts that consumed his blood are larger, more lively and therefore more profitable for sale. So he’ll have to find some blood…
The cloud was celebrated by critics, and was awarded several times. There are many reasons: it’s a reality horror film with its “creatures” bloodthirsty, here hundreds of locusts devouring every living being in their path. It’s also abouta social thriller : how, due to too much economic pressure, we can literally be led to give our “flesh” to the system. Still, The cloud and also a family chronicle and the portrait of a woman, whose challenge is to be able to be independent and raise her children. Many elements that make it a brilliant horror film as well as a one-of-a-kind film, and a success in all its aspects.
Source: Cine Serie
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