They live. Whether they are rebels or criminals, conspiracy theorists or zombies, there is a substantial part of a “different” society that lives with us (we “normal” and already here we would have to discuss), it proceeds parallel, it touches us, every now and then it intercepts us, every now and then it collides.
In general, let’s pretend that it doesn’t exist, that it only concerns certain well-defined areas (real or virtual), “ghettos”, neighborhoods where “we” don’t set foot and where “they” shouldn’t leave.
If there is a cinema that has been able to tell the degeneration of this real situation it is France, where since 1994, the year of Hate, the memorable film by Mathieu Kassovitz, things have only got worse. With a greater or lesser propensity to make a show, to insist on pure violence or to draw a sociological framework, many films have dealt with the subject and some have been so exemplary as to remain impressed, such as Les Misérables, directed in 2019 by Ladj Ly. Banlieue life of rapper Kery James (different even if related to the beautiful Polisse and BAC Nord). Without forgetting the anxious Shorta, a Danish film of 2020 (because even there things are not going very well).
After being presented at the Venice Film Festival, Athena is now streaming on Netflix, the new film by Romain Gavras, here in her second feature film, whose surname will tell a lot to older viewers, having been her father Costa one of the major Greek directors of the 60s / 70s and also 80s, still active, a highly politicized man, author of films such as Z – The orgy of power, La confessione, L’Amerikano, Missing, Music Box.
Athena is a fictional name, there is no banlieue that is called that, this is already the signal that Gavras Jr intends to depart from other genre films, to focus on the narration of a Greek tragedy, with a conflict between brothers, each symbol of a way of life, of a different way of relating to the “outside” world and of the different failure.
Five brothers, not all from the same father, enter the scene one after the other. One, Idir, 13, we’ll never see him, he’s the one who started it all, beaten to death by a handful of policemen (but were they really policemen?). Abdel is a soldier called back to the scene to act as a link between the authorities and the rioters. Arriving in positions of responsibility, esteemed as a symbol of change, a sign that “integration” is possible (but at what price?), He will make the mistake of believing that we can still reason.
Karim, younger, unleashes a war of unusual violence in order to have the names of those responsible for the death of his little brother. Blinded by the delusion of omnipotence at having become the leader of the revolt, he is one with whom he no longer thinks. How can you not reason with Moktar, the eldest, a brutal drug dealer who only thinks about making bags of cocaine disappear, in anticipation of a raid by the police. Sébastien looks like a child in the body of an adult, while he takes care of a beautiful flowerbed, but he will play a very different role.
Around them are the fanatics who follow Karim but also the tenants out of the crazy game, for the most part moderate Muslims who are headed by a powerless Imam. The contagion spreads, riots and attacks spread across the country, against police or Muslims, from the right and left. The system, which has allowed the situation to degenerate to a point of no return, unscrupulously sacrifices innocent policemen by throwing them into the fray. Nobody listens to anyone, everyone rushes head down towards the abyss.
Athena is an action thriller, a siege film, an urban war film, the story of a lost family, there is no space (it would be obvious, banal) for messages of denunciation, for social analysis already Exposed too many times, it is rightly taken for granted that the viewer has already elaborated those arguments. How, when it all started, what social / urban planning illusion, what errors in the management of integration, what ideals never shared and promises not kept generated all this? And how could it be remedied? In no way now.
Extreme stories can only develop about that hell and this tells us Gavras, who after all writes the screenplay with Ladj Ly, author of the above-mentioned masterpiece, Les Misérables. The initial assault and other combat sequences, for the primitive violence are reminiscent of medieval assaults, wild brawls a la Mad Max.
Romain Gavras stages, with spectacular taste and with undoubted attraction for “épater le burgeois”, a tragedy that illustrates the impossibility of the civil coexistence of extreme positions, embodied in the different types of brothers. A lot of violence choreographed with style does not undermine the effectiveness of the film and still leaves time for reflections, comparisons, comparisons. And pessimistic forecasts. As violence you call violence and blood you call blood in a logical, inevitable, unstoppable, almost shareable escalation. However, few are willing to accept the consequences of their choices.
Ladj Ly in an interview said: “The common enemy between the inhabitants of the neighborhood and the policemen is misery”. Athena is a film (like some of the ones mentioned above) that some Italian mayors should watch carefully.
Not all has gone well so far. It will get worse and worse.
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