Although the intensity of the unrest in France in 2023 has decreased at the time of this writing, it proves how creepy Romain GavrasNetflix released Athena predicted the civil strife observed just a few weeks ago. On June 27, French policemen unjustly killed a 17-year-old boy. Nahel Merzouk, a French boy of Algerian-Moroccan descent, while driving a reportedly suspicious vehicle. Protests first began in front of police headquarters, but soon escalated into riots that broke out across the country, especially after video evidence contradicted police testimony. These events are reminiscent of a number of protests against police brutality around the world, in particular the George Floyd protests that began in 2020 due to the introduction of lockdown measures in the wake of COVID-19. France, however, has civil unrest almost every year, in part because its police force is among the most brutal in Europe, having been convicted five times for violations by the European Court of Human Rights in the last six years alone. Romain Gavras deliberately channeled the public’s frustration with their supposed defenders into his fiery sophomore. Athena.
Released on Netflix in 2022, Athena A Greek tragedy, dramatic thriller and revolutionary cinema all rolled into one, telling about the consequences of the murder of 13-year-old Idir of Algerian-French origin at the hands of the police. The tension mostly has to do with Idir’s three older brothers and their wars with each other due to their opposing affections. Abdel (Dali Benssala), which opens the film, is a soldier striving to quell the inevitable civil unrest, despite his fraternal affiliation with the deceased. Karim (Sami Slimane), the youngest of the surviving brothers, who mobilizes the suburbs, leads a movement of militaristic resistance to the police, his goal is for the police to divulge the names of those who killed Idir. Finally there is Moctar (Wassini Embarek) who cares less about escalating the civil war and more about getting guns and drugs out of the suburbs before Karim’s militarization. In collaboration with Gavras, Elias Belkeddar And Outcasts director Laj Lee (also inspired by the 2005 Paris riots), Athena it’s a ruthless pressure cooker waiting to burst until it finally bursts.
Athena talks about amazing films
There’s no talk about Athena without discussing his first shot. The words “visually stunning” are often heard, but Athena receives special praise for long shots, even in the age of digital filmmaking when audiences were privileged to see Tom Cruise makes a real HALO jump on the big screen. It is not simple Athena starts with a 12 minute shot, but this long shot actually starts on the outskirts of the police station, but turns into a full blown riot where Karim leads an army of young men to steal police weapons. In the same shot, they hijack a police van to return to the suburbs, militarize a high-rise building, and defiantly climb to the top of their barricades with a closing camera move in which a steadicam operator is attached to a crane to get that last epic hero pose.
One would think that after this stunning 12-minute opening, the cast and crew could take a short break, but according to Gavras himself, his cinematographer (in this case, a South African Myron Mance) “bored if there is no danger.” They maintained this incredible energy throughout the film, and further long shots depicted real wars between youths and policemen as they respectively exchanged flares and Molotov cocktails with rubber bullets, stun grenades and tear gas. To add to the grueling nature of the production, 80% of the film was reportedly shot in IMAX, meaning heavier cameras that are much more difficult to maneuver in the tight spaces of a police van, especially when carried from moving vehicles. and motorcycles. In the Netflix short, Gavras stated that he and his team only focused on completing one shot a day, creating a strong on-set camaraderie for their streamlined goals and accomplishments. Other than that, it also gives viewers a good idea of how many stunning long shots must be the mystery of this unsung technical masterpiece.
The resemblance was so strong that people confused the film with reality.
But not only the technical elements of Gavras and his team are worthy of praise. None of this would have mattered if it hadn’t captured the spirit of the millions of young people who fell victim to France’s increasingly brutal police. Just last week, at the height of the riots, French lawmakers agreed to give the police the ability to remotely spy on “suspicious” citizens with their tech devices, giving them access to a conventional camera, microphone and GPS functionality. of which may result in a five-year prison sentence. This titanic violation of privacy and civil rights is reminiscent of Batman’s use of the SONAR machine in Christopher Nolan The Dark Knight. Meanwhile, it is worth remembering that France is a country that is still suffering from the consequences of its very recent colonial history, described in Battle for Algiersespecially with regard to their large systematically oppressed Algerian population.
When the spirit of the French protesters comes into full play in the epic of Romain Gavras, people on the internet are actually sharing footage from the movie en masse, believing they are actually from today’s ongoing riots. Less believable footage of the movie’s zombie car stunts The fate of the furious, but the very fact that these two carefully orchestrated action movies could garner millions of tweets under the pretense of being real is indicative of the strife present in today’s political climate. Gavras goes to great lengths to authentically portray the anger shown by the youth, ensuring that their revolutionary spirit is justified and that his characters are fully sympathetic. Added to this sympathy are the three “save the cat” moments that Gavras seamlessly incorporates into his opening speech on Karim, where in the course of one long shot, a youth-turned-militant risks his life to save a friend from the cops, calmly urging his family to evacuate the suburbs , and offers a cigarette to a beggar, ensuring that his audience knows we’re following a good man.
Romain is not the only member of the Gavras family who advocates revolutionary cinema
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The name Gavras is not necessarily a household name even among moviegoers, but it should be. Romain Gavras is not the first member of the family to be involved in revolutionary cinema. In fact, his father Costa Gavraswas a Greek political filmmaker in the 60s who was expelled from his native country during the rise of the military dictatorship in 1967 and forced to move to France to film a confrontational masterpiece. Z in 1969. Although its dialogue is entirely in French, the film is set in Greece and follows the government-assisted assassination of a popular left-wing MP (Grigoris Lambrakis) in 1963, exacerbating the conditions that allowed the military regime to come to power years later.
The film captures his outrage very effectively, becoming the first film ever to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Foreign Language Film, winning the latter. It is even a favorite among similar Oliver Stone And William Friedkin, by the way, and absolutely necessary for those who are at least somewhat interested in revolutionary cinema. Later, the same director created a number of masterpieces, the most famous of which received the Palme d’Or. Missing (starring Jack Lemon And Sissy Spacek) and 1972 state of siegewho fearlessly oppose the silent involvement of the United States in the rise of military dictatorships around the world.
Romain Gavras stated in an interview that his father fed him Tarkovsky from the tender age of 7 years (way too young, and anyone who has seen Tarkovsky’s film will argue), resulting in his rebellion was his immense respect for action films such as tenacious (fair!). This union between art house filmmaking prowess and action is exactly what Gavras embodies in his film. Athena, while proving purposefulness, epic and wild emotionality. This is a film that ignites a fire in the souls of viewers that burns long enough to remain relevant for years to come. With its ending championing the futility of violence, there’s no better time to watch this film than now.
Source: Collider
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