Athena

Ghetto War from France! Athena is a relative of films like Les Miserables and Short, and anyone who has a soft spot for films like this will be pleased. Director Romain Gavras engulfs the audience with a dense atmosphere from the very beginning. The opening ambush of the police station is really intense, ruthless and quite chilling (filmed in one take!). The tragic death of a boy in a housing estate triggers utter anarchy, chaos and civil war in the streets, which throws three brothers into a nasty situation. Not much of a story here, it's pretty simple, but it works. Sami Slimane's young thug capo was perfect, he puts on an incredible performance for an unknown actor and I totally bought the whole role (I enjoyed his image and speech). The great cinematography that shows all the chaos almost in one take, the wonderfully haunting music and the bleak atmosphere worked wonderfully here. Towards the end, the film shifts more to drama and the pace slows down slightly, but this can be forgiven. An adrenaline ride as it should be. 75% (25/09/2022)

The viewer is drawn into the roar of demonstrations in a bombastic way; the first long, seemingly one-shot scene is technically beautiful. The film’s anger-fuelled drive never lets up, reminding us multiple times of the filmmakers’ effort to create superbly composed, dramatically intensifying long shots. However, they don’t manage to bring us close enough to the characters that we would experience the hell that they are going through. We don’t even learn anything more personal about the most sensible of them than who her sibling is. With such a simple plot premise, no binding emotions and no higher artistic reach, Athena becomes a bit of a superficial construct. (14/12/2022)