The Second Act, The Palace, Roqya: What’s new at the cinema this week
What to see in theaters
THE EVENT
THE SECOND ACT ★★★☆☆
By Quentin Dupieux
The essential
The trio Léa Seydoux- Vincent Lindon- Louis Garrel, completed by Raphaël Quenard offers Quentin Dupieux, more disciple of Bertrand Blier than ever, his best film since At office !
David explains to his friend Willy that he would like to push Florence into his arms, the young woman who has set her sights on him but does not attract him. Then we find Florence in discussion with her before introducing her to this David with whom she has fallen madly in love. Do you find this dramatically inept and damn cutesy? Imagine that the actors in this film too and that it is in the way of expressing it by interrupting the takes and more generally of discussing from there their profession and the spirit of the times which surrounds it ( the risk of finding yourself canceled at the slightest bad buzz, the #metoo movement, etc.) that The Second Act takes flight. Certainly, we find here Dupieux's chronic inability to put an end to his films. Certainly, what is said about the so-called vanity and egocentrism anchored in the bodies of the actors entails clichés. And yet, The Second Act appears to be his most successful film since At office ! Firstly because here he seems to accept more than ever the cynicism and misanthropy of his cinema. And above all because its actors take power. The genius of self-deprecation of a Vincent Lindon (of whom one would think we hear certain angers that he was able to express in “real” life), the vis comica of Louis Garrel already at work in The Innocent and the insane freedom of play of Léa Seydoux do wonders. In each of their scenes. In both action and reaction mode.
Thierry Cheze
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PREMIERE LIKED A LOT
THE FOUR SOULS OF THE COYOTE ★★★★☆
By Aron Gauder
A peaceful resistance is organized around a pipeline which crosses a Native American reserve: an old man tells on this occasion the story of the creation of the world, of animals and of human beings, and in particular the creation of Coyote, a polymorphous spirit and misleading. The 4 souls of the Coyote takes hold of mythology to tell the world: nothing really new on the program, but the film is completely the opposite of the well-marked and clean animated films that regularly arrive on our beautiful screens. And it seems banal to say that but the film is really super beautiful, playing on shapes and colors according to the inspiration and modulations of the story: the climax which replays the creation of Adam and Eve giving birth to civilization industrial is a rather astonishing moment of cinema and writing. Yes, we are a long way from formatted products which greatly underestimate their audience.
Sylvestre Picard
WHEN EVIL LURKS ★★★★☆
By Demian Rugna
Acclaimed in numerous festivals since last year, When Evil Lurks is one of those nuggets that make them famous even before their official release. The feature film by Demián Rugna (who until then made horror films that struggled to make a splash beyond South America) contributes to the building of the possession genre. In deep and superstitious Argentina, isolated in the middle of agricultural lands, two employees discover that strange events are caused by the presence of a body corrupted by a demonic spirit. To escape the curse, they embark on a road trip of bloody brutality and unbridled violence, far from the compartmentalization expected of yet another legacy ofExorcist. A real breath of fresh air, the most attentive spectators will appreciate one of the nastiest films of the year.
Bastien Assie
FIRST TO LIKE
QUEENS ★★★☆☆
By Yasmine Benkiran
A regular at thefts and scams of all kinds who escaped from prison, her daughter whom she managed to rescue from the clutches of social services and the driver of a truck whom she took hostage to trace the route to the heart of the Atlas makes up the singular trio of this fast-paced road movie, with the police on their heels. The shadow of Thelma and Louise hovers over this rock n' roll story that celebrates the desire for female freedom in a Morocco weighed down by the weight of patriarchy. There is rhythm and inventiveness in the adventures that Yasmine Benkiran has imagined throughout the incredible journey of her devilishly endearing heroines. This energy associated with the remarkable work on light by Pierre Aïm (the ops director of Hate And Polish) allows a unique voice to be heard in Moroccan cinema with this eminently playful way of embracing essential societal questions. A hymn to disobedience.
Thierry Cheze
THE FANTASTIC THREE ★★★☆☆
By Michael Dichter
An inseparable trio, bikes, a village where everyone knows each other… The Fantastic Three fills in all the boxes at first glance teen movie French style, social while having kept his “child’s soul”. A few signs will quickly steer the story towards a harder line: the last factory is about to close, the gang has not yet raised enough money for everyone to go on vacation together. Thanks to its well-found casting, the film soars in most of the scenes filmed at child height. But this breath of fresh air is gradually overtaken by the socio-political premises distilled in fine touches. Brother of a delinquent, one of the kids, Max “naturally” follows this path and immerses the gang in problems that are beyond their control. And this small, harmless village then becomes the scene of drug trafficking, violent school harassment, a settling of scores… From the Ardennes to the cartels of Mexico there is suddenly only one step left: a unique and exciting way to take your spectators on a journey!
Nicholas Moreno
RAPTURE ★★★☆☆
By Dominic Sangma
How long has it been since we’ve seen such a night filmed in the cinema? From its introductory sequence shot, astonishing in its mastery, Rapture makes darkness his playground, and questions it from all angles. Young Kasan lives in a small village in the northeast of India, terrorized by foreigners whom they accuse of kidnapping children. The child's fear of darkness gradually merges with the obscurantist excesses of certain adults, ready to manipulate the fear of the village for their personal purposes. Sometimes too contemplative, to the detriment of a more ferocious treatment of the relationships (of hatred) between groups, the film meticulously follows Kasan, in his travels as in his nightmares. And then restores the experience of this primitive fear from which we thought we were free. In reality, it never truly leaves us: it takes on new, more disturbing forms.
Nicholas Moreno
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FIRST TO MODERATELY LIKED
ROQYA ★★☆☆☆
By Saïd Belktibia
For his first feature film, Saïd Belktibia has imagined a thriller with an original subject as it addresses the growing use of witchcraft and occult sciences which is rife in today's France. By focusing on the story of an independent woman who traffics in exotic animals but is accused of witchcraft by the residents of her neighborhood and finds herself separated from her son, the filmmaker opts for a stalking film. and the suspense story. But by wanting to mix a large number of subjects (the business of esotericism, the terrifying excesses of social networks, contemporary social distress, the fight of a mother for her child), the film loses its narrative tension along the way. and scatters. Despite the investment of the always excellent Golshifteh Farahani, this thriller with its immersive ambition unfortunately leaves us at a distance and hardly bewitches.
Damien Leblanc
THE BITE ★★☆☆☆
By Romain de Saint-Blanquat
HAS both a nocturnal tale with a fantastic atmosphere, a reconstruction of a small French provincial town in 1967 and a metaphor for the transgressive fire that burns in youth before the transition to adulthood, Romain de Saint-Blanquat's first film does not not lacking in style. It follows two teenage friends, residents of a strict Catholic high school, who decide to go on a tear for Mardi Gras and end up in a costume party with a gloomy and vampiric atmosphere. The more reckless of the two young girls is convinced that she only has one night left to live and will then sink her teeth into the present moment without fear of danger. If the slick staging sometimes hits the mark, the story turns out to be strangely sluggish and stitched together to the point of creating an overly nonchalant rhythm. Briefly summoned, the ghosts of Clouzot, Rollin or Argento ultimately remain far on the horizon.
Damien Leblanc
WHERE GOD IS NOT ★★☆☆☆
By Mehran Tamadon
“Here is purgatory. Here you choose between heaven and hell.” Under the eye and camera of Mehran Tamadon, the director of this documentary devoted to the torture perpetrated by the Islamic Republic of Iran, three political refugees replay, in a large two-hour restitution, the actions of their jailers. One pretends to torture the director in a Parisian hangar; another rebuilt the cell of her women's prison using a few wooden planks, which she shared with so many inmates that they had to rotate the beds so they could all sleep at night. If this doc informs us about the cruelty of the Iranian regime, it unfortunately does not consider it useful to contextualize the facts that it denounces… So much so that in the end, we do not know much more about the political context of this country which is often in the news.
Emma Poesy
FIRST DID NOT LIKE
TURTLES ★☆☆☆☆
By David Lambert
It's difficult not to be bored by the (mis)adventures of Henri and Thom, a homosexual couple whose 35 years of living together ended up giving rise to an increasingly unbearable boredom and dullness for the former, a cop at the retreat, while the second, aware of the bond that is disintegrating to the point of rupture, will do everything to rekindle the dormant flame. Telephone situations, archetypal characters… we knew David Lambert more inspired with Outside the walls And I'm yours.
Thierry Cheze
FIRST DID NOT LIKE IT AT ALL
THE PALACE ☆☆☆☆☆
By Roman Polanski
Sinister farce about a handful of ultra-rich going crazy on the eve of the transition to the year 2000, The Palace struggled to find a distributor in France, and ended up doing so at a reduced price. The reputation of Roman Polanski, accused of multiple sexual assaults, does not explain everything: his film is objectively damning, heavy-handed, never funny, sub-Östlund, very corny in its satire of the nouveau riche vulgarity of Russian oligarchs and freaks socialites who jostle in the five-star hotels of the Swiss Alps. It's a film so aggressive, ugly and misanthropic that one could reasonably argue that Polanski intended it as a middle finger. A spit, designed to arouse the anger of the movie-going crowd, the sacrificial act of an author who, as he knows he will not leave the stage amid applause, chooses to encourage boos.
Frédéric Foubert
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Et also
Lightly, by Bertrand Latouche
France, the fabulous journey, by Michael Pitiot
Intruders, by Renny Harlin
