Horizon, Ghosts, Pompo the cinephile: what's new at the cinema this week

What to see in theaters

THE EVENT
HORIZON: AN AMERICAN SAGA – CHAPTER 1 ★★★☆☆

By Kevin Costner

The essential

A large fresco conceived as a cinema monument, but which operates on alternating current: sometimes flamboyant, often heavy, still very long.

Kevin Costner allowed himself to leave Yellowstonea contemporary western series breaking all audience records, at the height of its success. To do what? Cinema, of course. And not just any old way: by producing his own ultimate great western fresco, Horizon. Four three-hour films that revolve around a utopian city, at the time of the Civil War. with Indians, soldiers, settlers, bounty hunters, outlaws, entrepreneurs… This “chapter 1” is crossed by just as many great moments (the night attack on the village, the discussion between Costner and a outlaw along a slope, the ensuing shootout) than of swelling passages, even incomprehensible ellipses given the length of the work. We feel that the great subject, the mythological foundation of America, is quivering beneath the surface. But didn’t Costner bring it to the surface in 1997 with Postman ?

Sylvestre Picard

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FIRST LIKED MUCH

THE GHOSTS ★★★★☆

By Jonathan Millet

A documentary filmmaker eager to tell the story of a secret cell tracking Syrian war criminals hiding in Europe, Jonathan Millet embraces spy cinema and gives free rein to a romantic exploration of this quest for justice. By following Hamid, a young Syrian tortured in Bashar al-Assad’s prisons and who finds himself in Strasbourg on the trail of his former torturer whose face he has never seen, this captivating thriller transforms an infiltration mission into a fascinating empire of intimate sensations and traumatic memories. In the heart of seemingly tranquil settings (a French university, an Alsatian Christmas market, etc.), a spiritual and sensory whirlwind thus agitates the hero, a former literature professor haunted by the war that Adam Bessa plays with moving restraint.

Damien Leblanc

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POMPO THE CINEPHILE ★★★★☆

By Takayuki Hirao

We are in Nyallywood, version Japanime Hollywood, where producer Pompo is a superstar because she knows how to make blockbusters like no one else. Except that in Nyallywood, blockbusters are B movies with girls in bikinis, guns and tentacle monsters… In this charming universe, Gene, Pompo’s depressed and overworked assistant, will realize his dream: to make his first film, a drama between The melody of happiness And Maestrowith an unknown actress and a cinema veteran. And Pompo the Cinephile then embarks on a maddening ode to creation and tinkering in fashion shonenquestioning in passing the very notion of film – or even of a work of art in general, mind you. For a result that is a little naïve certainly but devilishly enjoyable

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FIRST LIKED

MEANWHILE ON EARTH ★★★☆☆

By Jeremy Clapin

Struggling to find her bearings after her brother’s disappearance during a space mission, Elsa discovers one day that a strange alien voice is communicating with her from inside her head, assuring her that her brother is alive… somewhere in the universe and offering her an ultimatum to bring him back. With a setting flirting with a comic book style, a dreamlike rhythm and graphic scenes, Jérémy Clapin rubs shoulders with science fiction without ever investing in it, preferring to make Meanwhile on Earth a gripping social drama. Approaching live action with this second feature, the director of I lost my body scatters space scenes in cartoons, Elsa’s waking fantasies. And his film carries us away with its visual richness and Megan Northam’s convincing performance.

Bastien Assie

THE PROFESSOR ★★★☆☆

By Maria Alché and Benjamin Naishtat

By telling the story that could seem classic of an academic in the midst of an existential crisis, this social comedy powerfully echoes the crisis that Argentine society has been going through since the election of Javier Milei. The misfortunes of a philosophy professor from Buenos Aires who feels disoriented following the death of his mentor indeed give pride of place to the doubts that assail an intellectual world that until now believed to be sitting on relatively stable foundations. Generous in comic shifts but above all capable of provoking feelings of vertigo in the face of the uncertain future of the Argentine University, this film made by four hands wonders whether public structures and knowledge are still capable of absorbing the country’s inequalities. And it is thanks to its conclusion that calls for revolt that this pamphlet written and filmed before Milei’s election finds a very contemporary scope.

Damien Leblanc

BLUE LOCK THE MOVIE – EPISODE NAGY

By Taku Kishimoto

A movie or an episode? A movie and an episode? More like a “pilot episode”, actually. So nothing to do with Haikyū!!: The Garbage War (in theaters since June 12), previous film released by the Japanese animation platform Crunchyroll which was a film in itself (dedicated to a volleyball match between high school teams) with a beginning and an end. Adapted from a shonen of soccer, Blue Lock the Movie – Episode Nagi begins in a classic way but ends with a editing sequence announcing the continuation of the series, and ends on a cliffhanger ultimately quite absurd… It’s a shame because the shonen effects (basically: particularly over the top football actions based on slow motion and freeze frames) are very exciting to watch. So, it doesn’t really work as a movie, barely as an episode, but in terms of a cinema lesson, it’s worth taking notes.

Sylvestre Picard

MATRIA ★★★☆☆

By Alvaro Gago

Freshly laid off from her job as a janitor, Ramona struggles to secure the financial future of her eighteen-year-old daughter. This Spanish mother, precarious, angry and always in a hurry, then throws herself into a job search until exhaustion. Álvaro Gago signs a deeply committed first film and reprises the character of his 2017 short film of the same name dedicated to Ramona’s routine in a factory. Here, it is María Vázquez (Mataharis And Eye for an eye) who plays the role with aplomb. In her frantic race between odd jobs across a Galician coastal town, she witnesses the verbal cruelty of the recruiters and the toxicity of his marital framework, accentuated by the realistic style of the photography. Despite the seriousness of his subject, Matria gracefully captures the strength of a woman’s will in her quest for emancipation.

Bastien Assie

THE HUMAN SURGE 3 ★★★☆☆

By Eduardo Williams

A leading figure in Argentine avant-garde cinema, Eduardo Williams explores with his series Human Surge the nature of relationships between humans from all four corners of the globe. Unrelated sequel to a first opus (there is no opus number 2), The Human Surge 3 takes place in Sri Lanka, Peru and Taiwan, and extends the staging and relationship of men and women who would never have crossed paths without the existence of cinema. Once accustomed to the originality of the image, created from material intended for 360° virtual reality, the documentary moves with its pure fluidity, a connection projecting us from one continent to another without us noticing or being told. In its most experimental flights, particularly at the end of the film, the film reads like a poem whose rhymes would tell the experience, both trivial and magnificent, of living here or there on Earth, all together.

Nicolas Moreno

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FIRST DIDN’T LIKE

ELYAS ★☆☆☆☆

By Florent-Emilio Siri

Good idea to give Roschdy Zem a gun: in great shape, he fights with great enthusiasm in this Elyas. The start of a Liam Neeson-style reconversion for the actor (we will see him as a soldier in Afghanistan in the next Martin Bourboulon, 13 days, 13 nights) ? We wish him well, but there is not much to save (apart from him as an ex-para with PTSD charged with protecting a woman and her daughter from an Islamo-mafia network) in this Elyas borderline nanar which looks more like Neeson at the end of his second career.

Sylvestre Picard

WHY ARE YOU SMILING ? ★☆☆☆☆

By Chad Chenouga and Christine Paillard

Two of the most popular comedians have fun playing the homeless, and lead a poor woman who helps the most deprived into a fool. Raphaël Quenard still does Quenard and Jean-Pasclz Zadi plays with foreign accents… If we had given up the idea of (smiling) at this bad taste comedy, we will discover with annoyance a reconciling finale in the style of “everyone is beautiful, everyone is nice”. The film depoliticizes poverty and that seems to make everyone smile. Why!?

Nicolas Moreno

Eyou too

Zak & Wowo, The Legend of Lendarys, by Philippe Duchêne and Jean-Baptiste Cuvelier

Reprises

Ducobu President!, by Elie Semoun

Ducobu 3, by Emilie Semoun

The student Ducobu, by Philippe de Chauveron

Exist, by David Cronenberg

Paris, Texas, by Wim Wenders

More than yesterday, less than tomorrow, by Laurent Achard

The 7 Samurai, by Akira Kurosawa

Typhoon club, by Shini Somai