The brutal Franz Rogowski couldn’t save this debut – The Hollywood Reporter

A young Belorussian tries to make the perilous trip across the EU to sign up for the French Foreign Legion while a young rebel leader in Niger and his sister try to help their people survive. After the devastation of post-colonialism in Berlinale the opponent was extremely uneven disco boy.

Dedicated, physically strong lead performance by German actor Franz Rogowski (recently appeared in Ira Sachs’ paragraph), the brilliant cinematography of DP Helene Louvart and the stirring electronic music of composer Vitalic, all come together to make this an outstanding, emotional cinematic experience. But, yeesh, that script by director-screenwriter Giacomo Abbruzzese was a mess – a messy mix of silly supernatural elements and the writer’s indigestible artifice, all decorated with an outright plagiarism from Claire Denis’ supremely superior 1999 film Foreign Legion Beau Travail. But by all means, you can also steal from the best.

Rogowski’s Aleksei was first met while traveling to Poland from Belarus under the pretext of going to a football match with his friend Mikhail (Michel Balicki), the two of them brimming with enthusiasm and daring. . But while trying to cross the illegal border, marked by a river, into Germany, everything happened and only Aleksei reached France. Judging by his 1,000-meter gaze, he’ll never be the same—but if he gets through training for the Legion and survives 5 years with the force, the rewards His will be a French passport, no questions asked.

A decent amount of time is then spent on the somewhat hectic training videos as we watch Aleksei and his teammates get covered in mud and push their bodies to the limit. while a sergeant shouted as they shouted. It could all be easily cut and pasted from countless other movies about soldiers at the training camp, except for Vitalic’s electronic dance music that makes it all feel a little bit more.^st-century.

Meanwhile, in the Niger Delta, the charismatic Jomo rebel (newcomer Morr Ndiaye, of Gambian descent) is commanding a unit that resists forcible land grabs by petrochemical companies, despite its primary nature The exact nature of the conflict is not terribly explained. Good. The opening sequence around a room full of sleeping corpses suggests that some action may be taking place in the dream world. It’s hard to say, and one gets the impression that Abbruzzese, coming out with this movie after several short films, is happy to leave things in the dark.

In any case, one of Jomo’s yellow eyes matches the eyes of his sister Udoka (artist Laëtitia Ky), and the brothers have an almost spiritual connection. That probably explains how in the second half of the film, Udoka and Aleksei find each other in a Paris nightclub after he and Jomo have a brutal confrontation in another river.

There’s definitely something evocative about the Abbruzzese filming of rivers in Poland, Niger and Paris, swampy locales where historic waters swirl the aforementioned characters in a whirlpool. its. There is clearly a deep sense of empathy for those affected by this trauma, from both Eastern Europe and Africa, who find themselves caught up in opposing sides in conflicts that ultimately only benefit the rich. But they all feel more like icons than characters, including Aleksei.

At least Rogowski and Ky are dancers expressive enough to add a bit of emotional shock through their use of movement, but that’s not really enough to set the stage for the film for those who don’t. see expect something more engaging. At least Louvart’s rich, jewel-toned cinematography is always brilliant, even if it feels a bit like a fashion movie with documentary elements.