2023-10-06 09:43:24
In Saint-Jean de Luz, young virtuoso directors show a bankrupt or changing world, corrupted by violence, religion or economic horror.
This year once more, the Saint-Jean de Luz festival shows the world in all its diversity and complexity, with a series of political films, but also thrillers, dramas and comedies. Existential drama, The Lights of Aden is a Yemeni film which talks regarding… abortion, yes yes! We are in Aden, in the south of Yemen, where Isra’a tries to survive with her husband and three children at the civil station, poverty, rationing. When she discovers that she is pregnant once more, her world collapses, and Isra’a decides to have an abortion. Hand in hand with her husband, she fights once morest a hypocritical system and embarks on a long way of the cross, between Kakfa and Mission : impossible. This is of course overkill, as the film is set up like a trap or a slow fuse explosive. For his second feature film, Amr Gamal hugs your neck, very gently, while he takes his two heroes through hell, and if he lifts the veil on a country that we know little regarding, the fight once morest stupidity, religion, precariousness is of course universal. Moreover, The Lights of Aden is a marvel on a formal level, with sumptuous framing, static shots that linger while the characters step out of the frame, close-ups that tear your heart out. Very big shock.
We stay in religion and beauty with the Turkish film Yurt, first feature film by young Nehir Tuna. The year is 1996. Coming from a rich family, Ahmet, 14, attends a secular private school. Soon, his recently converted father sent him in the evening to a dormitory run by Islamists, for long hours of Koranic studies, with the added bonus of bullying and corporal punishment. Will Ahmet resist this conditioning which threatens a country in the process of tipping over? For this story of initiation and coming of age regarding a teenager trying to find his place in the world, Nehir Tuna draws inspiration from his experience (he spent five years in a religious dormitory). Despite a good quarter of an hour too long, Yurt is a fascinating, complex work, which refuses any schematism on adolescence, regimentation, resistance to tradition or parents… With the French director of photography Florent Herry, Nehir Tuna carves a sublime black and white and is already establishing himself as a true filmmaker, whose next films we can’t wait to discover.
GRAY ZONE AND ECONOMIC HORROR
The next shock arrives from Belgium, with the impressive Leave the night. For her first feature film, Delphine Girard tells a story of rape, in the form of a horrific thriller. One night, a young woman, alongside a man who was driving, called the police. She pretends to speak to her sister and makes the police operator understand that she is in danger. At the end of a paralyzing suspense, the police manage to track the vehicle, arrest the driver, while the young woman assures that she was raped, which the suspect denies. Soon, director Delphine Girard becomes interested in the repercussions of violence in this broken woman, her attacker, the police officer who received the call, but also in the entourage of these characters, all contaminated by violence. She exposes poorly closed wounds, explodes the gray area of consent and signs a work as complex as it is devastating, helped by an astonishing cast made up of Selma Alaoui, Anne Dorval, Veerle Batens and the rapper Gringe.
We end in style with Dissident, first feature by Quebecer Pier-Philippe Chevigny. To save money, factory managers hire Guatemalan workers to do the dirty work. They are of course exploited, mistreated, cheated, poorly paid. Revolting once morest this modern-day slavery, the translator who is the link between the workers and management will soon revolt once morest her employers… Of course, the film takes place in Quebec but it might take place in France, with workers without papers. Everywhere, the economic horror which crushes men, with bosses (“ school bullies have become factory bosses ), themselves pressurized by big bosses abroad who always demand more performance, growth, profit. Very fine, the film reveals the flaws and moral dilemmas of the heroine (collaborator or resistance fighter?) and delivers an unvarnished portrait of capitalism which crushes bodies and defiles souls. Highly recommended!
Festival of Saint-Jean de Luz, upto October 8, Le Select cinema
More informations : https://www.fifsaintjeandeluz.com
The Lights of Adenno release date
Yurtno release date
Leave the night, released in March 2024
Dissidentno release date
By Marc Godin
1696586015
#world #states #SaintJeandeLuz
