Athena review: Netflix’s stunning antifa action movie brings the fire

AthenaThe latest film from music video director Romain Gavras, is a one-trick pony, but its tricks are so formally dazzling that it makes this a captivating experience. Consisting of several long, maze-like takes punctuated by traditionally edited scenes, it follows three French-Algerian brothers in Paris who find themselves in turmoil in the immediate aftermath of a tragic family tragedy. .

Their youngest child, a child named Idir, was murdered and caught on camera, and the French police appear to be the culprits. not. His younger brother Abdel (Dali Bensala) is a professional soldier dedicated to keeping order. But the most flammable piece of the puzzle is the youngest surviving sibling, Karim (Sami Suliman). Karim is a sad, sunken-eyed, charismatic leader who causes riots at his housing projects that spread rapidly throughout the city.

The opening sequence of the film sets the stage for a number of striking tableaus of state violence and anti-fascist uprisings, each beginning as a personal portrait and then being drawn out to reveal the full picture. It opens during a lofty police press conference about Idhir’s murder, which Abdel happens to attend and is wearing uniform. This scene ignites when a group of angry demonstrators throw Molotov his cocktail at the pulpit. Subsequent unbroken takes he lasts over ten minutes.

The sequence opens in a highly sterile environment, followed by Karim and dozens of other black-clad protesters not only commandeering guns and police vehicles, but driving around the city on high-octane. The chaos soon explodes into chaos in the White Knuckles chase, returning to the makeshift fort they built on the Athena estate (aptly named after the Olympian goddess of war).

This eruption seems to have happened a long time ago. Rather than rereading and restating the politics around them, as in the United States, police killings of civilians and subsequent protests have dominated the headlines for years in France. Athena It begins with a breathtaking climax and continues for nearly all of its 97 minutes.what we see in what we see Athena It is the beginning of the inevitable war.

Gavras captures it with cranes, drones, and logic-defying techniques, assembling it with hundreds of extras in gigantic, meandering patterns. It’s tactile, yet fantastic. The camera slides between cars and shoots from across the street like a passing tank. Then, get on the side of the car, crawl inside with the character, and pull back again to capture the scale of the head-spinning commotion.

Gavras’ frames of action rush from one moment of violent resistance to the next at breakneck speed, suggesting just how far this commotion has already spread by the time the film begins. But this staging of his opening scene also has a second function. It gives us not only the visual and emotional texture of the film, but also a detailed sense of the streets between the police station and Athena, with countless onlookers lining the roofs cheering for Karim. A story unfolds. Soon, neighboring housing projects will announce their allegiance to Athena, like the kingdoms joining the fray in Middle-earth.

Photo: Netflix

Few movies mimic the feeling of being on a roller coaster, where peaks and troughs lead to a rush of adrenaline that carefully resets before the subsequent drop. Abdel and Karim lead a confrontational charge, and waves of SWAT teams break into a fortified building filled with mobs. Meanwhile, their half-brother Moktar is in and out of both plots, protecting his business interests first when he can help either side. The three brothers represent aspects of French society in their microcosm. That is, the oppressors, the oppressed, and the money-making third parties who profit in any way, whether they are involved or not. Their symbolism leads to streamlined narratives that avoid the need to over-explain the who, what, and why.

The story is simple, but that too Simple. Gavras overshadows some of the simpler emotional material by getting the audience into mayhem first. Athena It focuses on brutal killings, and the plot that follows plays out like an expanded externalization of the grief that has become uncontainable after numerous such state-sanctioned executions. , is never given a chance to ruminate on this grief or truly feel it through the eyes of a brother. (including a fleeting encounter with the brother’s mother), but there is no pause in getting to know the brother outside of its prescribed role as a symbol of greater anxiety.

That said, films rarely dramatically portray their emotional wounds, but this iconic portrayal also lends itself to the aesthetic approach Gavras has taken throughout his career. I am creating two narrative features (our day will come When the world is yours), he is best known for his blistering music videos. Notably, in MIA’s “Born Free,” militarized police systematically hunt redheads in fantasy racist scenarios, and Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “Born Free.”no church in the wilderness‘ features some of the most striking images of violent protests in popular media.

Athena Brutal state violence is a pre-existing condition, the underlying diagnosis an afterthought, but Gavras explores its terminal symptoms with a distinctly visceral tinge. (This film is also, in a subtle sense, the successor to Gavras’ video.signby his late friend DJ Mehdi, is a vivid depiction of a suburban community that captures detail and lived experience as the camera moves through communal spaces. )

Athena It’s arguably a film more material than style, given how little time and attention is devoted to the personal drama that underlies its politics. Classicism was replaced by baroque staging, and long takes accelerated. The scenes are constructed in a way that feels both narratively consequential and visually prophetic. It seems to explore not only the movement of the subject, but also through the movement of the camera. Speeding up the film further leaves us with something closer to cubism in his art, where dimensions and perspective virtually overlap in all the havoc.

Photo: Netflix

The rehearsed nature of each long take isn’t just a clever gimmick, like Sam Mendes’ movies. 1917a war movie in which the fake one-take design loses the perspective of the character’s surroundings and loses its tension. Athena A symphony of its own, the living, breathing details of the brother’s environment are placed in the crosshairs as they build in moments of darkness that are rapidly consumed by the flames. Thick smoke and flying embers quickly become the default lingua franca, as if it were an uptempo remix of Sergei Bondarchuk. war and peaceMusic from Gavras’ own joint project generation 8 ion, combines booming Hans Zimmer-esque percussion with operatic vocalizations in a fixed state of crescendo. The music rarely stops moving or progressing like the images do, but it never loses momentum, with new and surprising conflicts around every corner.

Gavrus Shot Athena It uses IMAX cameras, so it’s first and foremost an eye-catching visual spectacle. – wrote Athena With Gavras and producer Elias Belkeddar. Ly was the 2019 director Les Miserablesis a modern adaptation of Victor Hugo’s novel, which was nominated for Best International Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards.favorite Athenait focuses on tensions between French police and communities of color, leading to a climactic eruption as well.

his view Les Miserables is a great movie and his approach AthenaCombining Ly’s focus on community with Gavras’ bold, mile-by-mile styling creates some quiet moments. These accentuate confusion and allow for short but unsettling rest. Before the audience knows it, the characters are back in the fray, into a chaotic world that threatens to consume them.When Athena, Gavras transforms its anger into a living diorama. This is technically quite amazing and emotionally exciting.

Athena Streaming on Netflix from September 23rd.