THE OPINION OF THE “WORLD” – WHY NOT
Eighth feature film by Xavier Beauvois, ex-flayed alive from the North, spiritual son of one of the greatest French critics in the person of Jean Douchet, realistic filmmaker with a raw tendency, retired for a few years already in Normandy where he works (more or less) bucolically at his work, with the recent complicity of the producer Sylvie Pialat who was behind The Guardians, and finds himself in flight from the present Albatross, by Baudelairienne memory.
We are – after the family in North (1991), the military in Don’t forget that you are going to die (1995), the cops in The Little Lieutenant (2005), the brothers in men and gods (2010), women in The Guardians (2017) – among the gendarmes of a Norman brigade. The group, at Beauvois, is always the living territory of an ideal destined to be put to the formidable test of reality.
Here, Laurent (Jérémie Renier), commander of the gendarmerie brigade of Etretat. A good father and companion (he is on the verge of marrying his daughter’s mother), a good policeman (serving and defending with measure and compassion), his well-traced life will know, at a crossroads of fate, a source of upheaval.
Ailments of our society
Among the current affairs of the post – an overview of the ills of our society, from “ordinary” suicide from the top of the cliffs of Etretat to domestic violence, including the question, debated between gendarmes, police violence -, the one particularly insists. She has the face of Julien, a farmer in distress, forty years old, strong-headed, hesitating between anger and despair in the face of administrative constraints which bring him to his knees.
For Laurent, Julien is the sign by which destiny is signaled. Except to reveal too much of the film, let’s just say that a scene of great violence and cruel irony unites rather than opposes the two men, at the end of which Laurent’s professional and private life will be suspended. , to branch off perhaps, to redefine oneself surely. The shape that this crossroads will take looks like a headlong rush.
The crossroads between Laurent, the gendarme, and Julien, the farmer, looks like a headlong rush
Provisions and packing hastily done, Laurent gives up everything, starting with his family, to “borrow” a friend’s boat and go to sea, far, probably as far as possible. We can clearly see that Xavier Beauvois intends to give to this eventful crossing, the most extreme point of which is a severe storm which almost wins, a dimension of almost religious purification. On the aesthetic level, we feel that this breaking point is akin to a Rossellinian moment of truth.
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