Drama by Nicolas Silhol, 1h35
After Corporate, Nicolas Silhol’s new film, Anti-Squat, takes the form of a social thriller plunging Louise Bourgoin into a spine-chilling plot. Ex-real estate agent who risks eviction, Inès Viviani is a desperate single mother, who watches over a 14-year-old teenager. She becomes “resident manager” at Anti-Squat, a private company that maintains empty office buildings by installing temporary residents there, subject to strict rules… The very current plot borders on dystopia and is reminiscent in many ways of the great cinema by Alain Jessua (Dogs, Paradise for all…). By opting for a clinical staging, anchored in a white, cold, glazed decorum, invaded by a wild nature that is reclaiming its rights, this committed, exciting, but uncomfortable futuristic thriller allows Louise Bourgoin to impose an alternating game on envy concern, gentleness and firmness. She looks perfectly at ease there. O.D.
Drame de Christian Petzold, 1h42
The Mercedes aren’t what they used to be: the two heroes break down in the middle of the forest. It’s the tile. They are lost. There is no network. They walk among the trees, their luggage on their backs. Between them, friction arises. Fortunately, they end up finding the house where they must stay. Leon has a novel to finish. Félix has to submit a series of photos for a Fine Arts competition. It’s summer. Christian Petzold, whose last productions had been a little disappointing, recounts the pangs of creation, the torments of jealousy, the dangers of global warming. He does it like a rough, Teutonic Rohmer. Romanticism is a German invention. It’s like a plaintive yet sunny song. The film swims in this sulky misanthropy, floats in innuendo, gives off an air of its own, intelligent and polished. Petzold’s camera never stalls. As for love, it is written in Gothic letters. All the rest is literature, that is to say cinema. IN.
Animation of Keiichi Hara, 1h56
For some time, Kokoro has not been going to school. She is targeted by a girl in her class. Now, as soon as she sets foot in college, stomach aches torture her. One day, her mirror starts to shine. She touches the object and passes into another world. Perched on a cliff, a marvelous castle welcomes her and six other children. A young girl with a wolf head mask dictates the rules of the place. You can only get there between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. – school hours. If they find a key hidden in the building, one of them can make a wish. The seven teenagers drop the wish, spend their days together in the wonderful place. All have the common point of being out of school because of bullying, they do not know it yet. Keiichi Hara’s storyline is a bit tangled in places. It draws heavily from the magical realism of Your Name, another sublime animated film from Japanese director Makoto Shinkai. We forgive the film its few flaws. We fall in love with the characters and the ending, bittersweet, tears us a few tears. E.P.
Drama by Nathan Ambrosioni, 1h36
From the first sequence, where Toni (excellent Camille Cottin) waits for her five children to come and pile into the car after school leaves, we understand that this joyful family comedy will take renewed narrative paths, far from the somewhat formatted successes that followed the triumph of What have we done to God?. Spirited away, touching, funny, the second film by the young Nathan Ambrosioni (after Les Drapeaux de papier, in 2018) focuses above all on painting the subtle portrait of a mother, former winner of the “ Star Ac'” who, after giving herself body and soul to her offspring, realizes that she has forgotten to live for herself. As her two eldest prepare to leave the nest, Toni as a family follows the emancipation of this single mother, who is taking back the course of her life. The film is choreographed like a wild and exhilarating ballet, from which you come out with a big smile! O.D.
Thriller by Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche, 1h54
But what an idea to show off at the local café. And then, you don’t steal from an Emirati prince without retaliation… Baby, the nickname of a friendly forty-something, and his gang thought they would pull off the coup of the century by seizing the highness’s van on the highway. Bad pick. With this heist story that comes up short, director Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche takes gangster films in reverse. Above all, he doesn’t try to make these small-time thugs, false villains and real chatterers, impressive. Filmed with the meticulousness of a documentary filmmaker, the social environment where they hatched, the suburbs, is entitled to more consideration. The beautiful shots of the building blocks which break the horizon follow one another. Problem is, this contemplative, naturalistic look only offers a distant echo to the plot which ends up, like the thugs on the screen, lacking nerve and depth. B.P.
Thriller by Yann Gozlan, 2h03
She is an airline pilot. He is a surgeon. Their schedules rarely overlap. They are often alone in their house perched on the heights of Toulon. At the airport, the heroine met a former lover with whom she had a torrid passion. Ana is a photographer, therefore an artist, that is to say capricious. In fact, she lives in the house that Estelle saw in her dream. Gozlan rolls out the full horror thriller arsenal. Diane Kruger is feverish, insomniac. She has the Vertigo bun, but the film looks more like a bad remake of No Spring for Marnie, one of the least defensible Hitchcocks, with flashbacks, false leads, big suspicions underlined in black marker. It feels poisonous. It is only poisoning. IN.