Take a country, France for example, where. Add a film that explores this spring, like . Add a film that explores this spring, like Athena, directed by Romain Gravas, produced by Netflix and available on the platform since September 23. The suburbs and the police are causing strong tensions. Add a film that explores this spring, like Athenadirected by Romain Gravas, produced by Netflix and available on the platform since September 23.
Mix it all up and ask readers to 20 minutes, what they think. You will reach a consensus on the breathtaking aesthetics of this feature film, carried by convincing young actors but served by somewhat clichéd roles, in the service of a weak scenario which blurs the message of the work and provokes many misunderstandings.
“Spectacular from the first minutes”
Athena opens with a ten-minute sequence shot, a festival through which Romain Gravas declines from the outset what will be the strength of his film, “spectacular from the first minutes”, as David, one of our readers. “Visually, what an achievement. The use of sequence shots makes it possible to immerse the spectator in a breathtaking action, in which the choreography, prepared to the millimeter, is brilliantly executed,” enthuses Willou. Paul also salutes “the gripping sequence shots, magnificent and immersive images” that plunge the viewer into the heart of the action.
All this is very beautiful, perhaps too much. “I found the film more pornographic than political”, dares Antoine who would gladly classify Athena in the category “riot porn”, a concept invented to “describe the voyeurism of Internet users in the face of videos of riots circulating on the Internet”. Quintessence of the parallel, by Antoine, “this sequence shot suffused with Gregorian chant” where the CRS in tortoise formation wipe out a cloud of fireworks mortars, similar to flaming arrows. “Fire, flames, smoke bombs, explosions replace the acme point of the porn film, namely ejaculation. All the technical equipment is at the service of this show. But this pyrotechnic enjoyment goes beyond simple visual pleasure. The spectator is galvanized by the heroic struggle of these young people who, with limited means (a few smoke bombs, two or three bikes) overcome a police force described as a faceless army. »
city music
Our readers were amazed, but they didn’t forget to listen. Athena is a film about the suburbs, but a double pirouette, lexical and sound, gives the district theater of the clashes the tunes of an ancient Greek city. Exit the rap, omnipresent in other films like Hatred. The director preferred to accompany his epic scenes with Gregorian chants and martial music. There are those who like it and those who don’t like it. “The choice of music is unbearable… Wanting too much to give yourself a style is completely missing”, regrets Fabien, while Lylou retains a work “carried by music worthy of the greatest peplums”. According to David, this “superb soundtrack (…) adds epic depth to the superbly choreographed Civil War scenes”.
David goes further: “Apart from a few costumes, the story can be transposed to scenes of ancient battles, as this soundtrack sometimes gives us the impression of leaving the suburbs to find ourselves in the middle of the Greco-Roman war. “A televisual raft of the Medusa accompanied by Gregorian chants in the most violent moments, you had to dare! “, defends all the same Brigitte. But not enough to mitigate the regrets of Cédric, for whom the “slightly weak soundtrack” of this fiction on the suburbs has the merit of not “falling into the cliché of rap”.
A stack of snapshots
But stereotypical images, our readers like Anissa highlight more than one. For her, “it’s a political and racist film”. She sums up the director’s project as follows: “show that the men of the city are violent and incapable of making a correct sentence in French. The role of women, although very important in reality in the fight against police violence, is completely absent. Women don’t seem to exist in their fantasy suburbs. »
Of the same opinion, Abdelmajid does not mince his words: “Tired of this kind of film. They perpetuate the clichés about the suburbs. It is only in France that we see that. The directors do not honor the fourth generation of immigrants who still fight every day against the appalling image conveyed by the lascars of the suburbs. “We needed protagonists, well here we are falling back a little into clichés, it’s true: a big brother who is looking for his place between military uniform and a family to support, a lost little brother who wants to make his own and who finds the respect of his peers by taking on the role of improvised warlord, the kingpin of the city, a furious arms dealer and the converted Frenchman stuck in S. All against a backdrop of black or Arab populations. The obviousness of the image of Epinal jumps to the eyes…”, to those of David at least.
Like Willou, most of our readers concede that the screenplay is “not the strong point of this film”. The end of the story also concentrates a good part of the criticism. But our amateur critics appreciated the acting of the actors, mainly male (Dali Benssalah, Sami Slimane, Anthony Bajon, Ouassini Embarek, Alexis Manenti…). “Actors all as gifted as each other”, slice Lylou and with “remarkable accuracy” according to Olivier.
A confusing message
After seeing the film, Brigitte believes that “evils replace words”. Many regret the poverty of the dialogues of these good actors. “Athena does not verbalize her remarks, notes Olivier. If the screenplay is simple, it’s because images sometimes don’t need words. The tragic fates of “heroes” do not always need to be judged verbally by a character who would be the spokesperson for some ideology. It is up to the spectator to understand what he is shown. “Except that the viewer, sometimes, he still has trouble following. “The scenario puts cops and rioters on an equal footing and the story makes them fight side by side against the fascist hydra, but the staging contradicts this statement by playing face-to-face”, analyzes Antoine, for whom the ” final revelation (…) contradicts all the staging work”.
According to Lou, “the real subject (who is responsible for the death of the little brother?) is left to end with a resolution that has everything of soft consensus”, which makes Athena a film “neither leftist nor rightist, but hollow”. For her, “it was however the ideal subject to dissect the mechanics of distress among the most deprived and that of the extreme right rotting the forces of order”. David offers an original reading. According to him, looking Athena “The lucid will see that our world is lost in no longer wanting to listen to the only reasonable voice, that of verified information which hoarse vainly in the hubbub of prejudices and the networks that relay them. More than a film of the suburbs, nice young people and bad cops (or the reverse for that matter) it’s a film about the value of information, hindsight and the objectivity that everyone should always show before acting or howling with the wolves. »