‘Athena Film Review: Romain Gavras Captures French Police Brutality With Visceral Power

For those who still have the mistaken impression that police brutality against black and other communities of color exists as a purely racially motivated form of violence, Athena, an explosive drama (literally and figuratively) by the son of a child, the French director Romain Gavras. The legendary author Costa-Gavras denies it.

The heartbreaking day after the brutal murder of a Middle Eastern boy at the hands of a group of white men – the police, far-right tribesmen, or perhaps the same – chaos follows. A deserted Parisian suburb of Athens when the youth revolted in response to such an injustice.

Gavras springs into action almost immediately, opening Athena (which will have its world premiere at the 2022 Venice Film Festival) as one of the cameramen leads us through a press conference for cameraman Matthias Boukar, where Abdel (Dali Benssala) also. a police officer and the victim's brother call for calm - in the midst of riots, where there are many barricades and fires.

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Karim (Sami Slimane), a young man and the brother of the deceased, wants to burn everything to rid the country of a toxic and institutionalized ideology of oppression, and orders an army of young people to take over the building and get ready to confront the authorities. . unless they reveal the names of the murderers. From the first minutes of the Athens screening, it is clear that we are talking about promoting films with thematic content.

As the family evacuated the area, complications mounted. in fact there is someone who is known to have carried out terrorist acts against the government of Athens, and there is also the drug dealer Moktar (Oussini Embarek) - there are also siblings Abdel and Karima.

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As the new law enforcement battalion arrives, the camera focuses on a new face, white cop, Jérôme (Anthony Bajon), who bluntly announces that he will be held hostage to force the establishment to comply with their demands.

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Integrated in the sense that it is an epic battle between the forces of good and evil, almost in a sacred sense, an unknown work of the composer Surkin ("Gener8ion"), which, after the sounds of the chorus, . to lift the tombstone that plays. Karim's impressive image of the fortress he and his comrades have built, and the media attention their righteous struggle has received, becomes even more heroic as the music intensifies.

Like director Laj Lee's Oscar-nominated debut Les Misérables, the latest Gavras is steeped in heavy messaging and imprecise narrative elements. The fact that all the main characters are brothers, each representing a different point of view within their traditional community, is too dramatic. Exploring the limits of brotherhood and, in this case, examining the ideological divisions that can threaten it, may be the goal of co-writers Gavras, Lee and Elias Belkeddar, but in this context their approach is easy to use in The Four Brothers . (2005). ) is more reliable.

If one thinks of the final scene of Les Misérables, where a group of predominantly black teenagers from a marginalized neighborhood fight the police in an apartment complex, Athena seems like an extension of that scene. Nevertheless, Gavras' orchestration reflects the causal urgency of the film's visual energy: a state of constant chaos staged to seem organically understood.

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The impact of electrifying images is based on the violent power of the show. The stoic interpretation of Slimane as a man with an overwhelming sadness coursing through his body makes it impossible, even for a second, to ignore the boundless determination that fuels his character, Karim. For Bensalah, as a conflicted Abdel, the portrait shifts from his initial attempt to defuse tension, to establish his police status above all else, to a state of bitter rage.

But despite Gavras' excellent direction and passionate central theme, Athens still treads on some familiar tropes with stories of persecuted and persecuted people. Finally, when the confrontation reaches an emotional and deadly climax, people can be fooled into thinking the filmmakers will tread over an unspoken line in the sand and not force the victim to become a bigger person than his or her enemy .

And while the fear of not allowing the protagonist to surrender to history's primitive vengeance is understandable, the result is more symbolic and perhaps less endearingly transgressive. Additionally, the creators decided to add an unnecessary epilogue that answers one of the film's central questions, but does nothing to enhance our vision beyond what we already know about an unseen eruptive event that gave way to ' a tumultuous plot.

The parallel between "Athena" and the more symbolic cauldron in Gavras' older catalog "Z" is not difficult to see. Both express their dissatisfaction with the people in power and their determination to resist the coercion and aggression of a few citizens. Gavras did not create an indelible work like his father's masterpiece, but both stem from a spirit of resistance, a power of vision and a general desire to use film as a tool of thought.

Athena will debut on Netflix on September 23rd.