Athena (Romain Gavras, 2022)

[flyonthewall2983]

Athena is the Netflix property everybody should be talking about now

[therewillbeblus]

Athena is the Netflix property everybody should be talking about now

How come? Can you talk about it?

[swo17]

It would be very funny if he said no

[flyonthewall2983]

I don’t want to give too much of it away but it’s maybe one of the best action movies I’ve seen of recent memory. Some of it I could see a mile away but not everything even then is at it seems. Really incredible filmmaking and storytelling all woven within what is an unfortunately very prescient plot.

[zedz]

I don’t want to give too much of it away but it’s maybe one of the best action movies I’ve seen of recent memory. Some of it I could see a mile away but not everything even then is at it seems. Really incredible filmmaking and storytelling all woven within what is an unfortunately very prescient plot.

Agreed. This is a very impressive film. It's a cousin to Ladj Lys' Les Miserables (he co-wrote it), but where that film was channelling The Wire, this one is striving for Greek tragedy, and doing remarkably well at translating it into contemporary terms.

There's a dazzling epic sweep to much of the action, and the signature shot is the mind-bogglingly extended, physically impossible plan-sequence.

SpoilerShow

e.g. the opening sequence, whose extreme indoor-outdoor flow involves both tracking alongside and entering into a speeding vehicle

Note, that's not a plot spoiler, but a fun spoiler, which I think is what flyonthewall was concerned about. There's a freewheeling audacity running throughout the film that is best experienced moment by moment.

Athena is a city state (banlieue) beseiged by an invading army (the police). The action begins in media res as four brothers struggle in different ways with the impact of a devastating offscreen event. Shit happens. Various forms of terrorism are engaged and interrogated.

The film is a very smart model of exposition. Like a classical drama, most of that exposition comes through the text. but the action is so headlong and the exposition so glancing that small, important details accrue bit by bit rather than being dumped on us from on high. Background radio and television broadcasts contribute essential information to the mix (That's the film's metaphorical Greek chorus. There's also a literal one.)

Ultimately, the tragedy became so heightened as to be a little abstract for me, but I was nevertheless swept away by the filmmaking.

[therewillbeblus]

I don’t want to give too much of it away but it’s maybe one of the best action movies I’ve seen of recent memory. Some of it I could see a mile away but not everything even then is at it seems. Really incredible filmmaking and storytelling all woven within what is an unfortunately very prescient plot.

Agreed. This is a very impressive film. It's a cousin to Ladj Lys' Les Miserables (he co-wrote it), but where that film was channelling The Wire, this one is striving for Greek tragedy, and doing remarkably well at translating it into contemporary terms.

So if I love The Wire but hated Les Miserables, and I like Greek tragedies, should I expect to dislike this?

[Pavel]

I think it’s safe to say that people who hated Les Miserables won’t like this one

[flyonthewall2983]

Thanks for the backup zedz, literally could not have said it better myself. Bilge Ebiri a voice I am a bit swayed on in terms of these things said this was the best movie of the year and I immediately checked it out.

[therewillbeblus]

I think it’s safe to say that people who hated Les Miserables won’t like this one

Interesting, I was being cheeky, since what zedz describes as the film's strengths don't feel at all aligned with my problems with Les Miserables

[Pavel]

Well then perhaps I was quick to comment. But I definitely think of those two films as companions and would be somewhat surprised if someone were to have very different reactions to them. I think a review somewhere said that Athena begins where Les Miserables ends, which feels about right — the tensions that had been building up in Les Miserables have now fully exploded.

[zedz]

I think it’s safe to say that people who hated Les Miserables won’t like this one

Interesting, I was being cheeky, since what zedz describes as the film's strengths don't feel at all aligned with my problems with Les Miserables

Formally, it's a very different film, but thematically and subject-wise it's of a piece.

[therewillbeblus]

As long as both sides and sets of characters are fleshed out and perspectives made multidimensional under what I assume is an umbrella of sociological examination, I'm game

[DarkImbecile]

As long as both sides and sets of characters are fleshed out and perspectives made multidimensional under what I assume is an umbrella of sociological examination, I'm game

Haven’t seen either yet, have no skin in the game either way, but is this a concern specific to films dealing with this subject matter or something? Why would fleshing out the perspectives of both sides matter in general or with these films in particular?

[therewillbeblus]

Nope, I'm just broadly indicating my problems with Les Mis already discussed at length in its dedicated thread. My point is the opposite- that I think my issues with that film were not emblematic of this 'type' of film and were more distinguished (to how that film proceeded to engage with its material in a way that postured at fleshing out a milieu with empathy a la The Wire without actually doing so), which is why I think I have a shot at liking this one. It would have to be making idiosyncratic choices in step with that film's cognitive dissonance for me to dislike it for the same reasons. I'm aware I'm in the minority on disliking that film and I'm sure it's a 'me' thing related to an aversion to specific choices, since I typically appreciate stuff like it, which is why all my posts here have been pushing back against determent in jest

[tenia]

Impressive stuff, much less impressive acting, stupid superficial plot that thinks it's Smart And Says Stuff About How We Live In A Society but actually isn't saying more stuff than Nid de guêpes but certainly isn't as good an actioner so it's not a good movie of either "genre".

I think it’s safe to say that people who hated Les Miserables won’t like this one

Even some people who quite liked Les Miserables didn't like this one.

[thirtyframesasecond]

Gavras has made some excellent music videos. No Church in the Wild (Watch the Throne) and Bad Girls (MIA) in particular. Trying to carve a directorial career very different to his dad's!

[flyonthewall2983]

Impressive stuff, much less impressive acting, stupid superficial plot that thinks it's Smart And Says Stuff About How We Live In A Society but actually isn't saying more stuff than Nid de guêpes but certainly isn't as good an actioner so it's not a good movie of either "genre".

The weak plot is made up for in a few moments that were just really raw and refute your view of the performances (the main ones were all extraordinary, and memorable). The world is uptight and maybe Athena is what happens when the light fuses or it could be some other conspiracy theory (of which the real tragedy unfolds through, disinformation).

[tenia]

To each its own, but I wouldn't call "raw, the performances of Sami Slimane and Ouassini Embarek, but just bad. Slimane looks like he thinks looking asleep and amorphous most of the time equates looking mysterious and venomously attractive, and Embarek is playing an actor playing someone who is faking being angry. Both are ruining climaxes by being so unconvincing in their roles.

I'll certainly remember these, but not for good reasons, and the rest definitely didn't feel like making up for a plot that really feels like wanting to comment on our society (Gavras himself confirmed this in interviews) but dilutes and confuses so much of its comment (including through its final "twist") most likely by fear of being used politically that I've read some people actually thinking it should be solely seen as an action movie, which definitely wasn't Gavras' ambitions, and which the movie clearly isn't good at if only taken as it is (again, it's no Nid de guêpes, precisely because it does spend lots of time on its tentative of commenting our society). It's no surprise it ended up being quite divisive in France, and not just depending on your political stance.

[Finch]

I watched the first 40 mins or so the other night; I thought it was an impressive logistical and technical achievement but I wasn't won over by the plot or the performances either, and to be honest, not really compelled to return to it.

[flyonthewall2983]

Athena is the Netflix property everybody should be talking about now

How come? Can you talk about it?

My point is that it is more deserving of its hype then something like Dahmer or these other movies of theirs that they pretend are hits.

[Persona]

ATHENA

Everyone likes to rag on Netflix but part of that is because they don't pay attention to the good stuff. Between this, THE STRANGER, CABINET OF CURIOSITIES, and THE GOOD NURSE, the streamer has been on a tear just within the past couple weeks (and have some promising stuff lined up to finish the year like PINOCCHIO, GLASS ONION, THE WONDER, THE PALE BLUE EYE, etc.)

ATHENA is a bold, modern epic tragedy from Romain Gavras (love his music videos and his last feature film) with some virtuosic long-take camerawork and other technical merits. Unlike some films that do similar things, I think here the approach isn't just impressive, it's expressive.

It is, however, a fundamentally simple (even simplistic) movie with a bit too much pomposity (particularly in the musical score) and people will be very divided about some of the story decisions... overall, though, I liked the film. It has a wonderful fluidity, intensity, and sense of time & place to it.

[knives]

Not to mention the new Selick which I’m pumped for.

[flyonthewall2983]

And Fincher’s next movie too

[Persona]

And Fincher’s next movie too

I think the Fincher is 2023.

[knives]

Even though I’m not completely sold on this, given your comments blus, I think you’ll actually like this. It plays out a bit like Z affixed to the structure of The Battle of Algiers. We start with someone like a protagonist, but the film expands from that into this apocalyptic ensemble where the situation becomes the villain.

Gavras’ camera is the real hero here. He presents something that thrilled me like no film since Children of Men which seems an obvious reference point even beyond the breathtaking action sequences. This does a lot to elevate the script which is sometimes too oblique and wanting in purpose, but having this follow a script with similar weaknesses, but bad direction in Visconti’s The Innocent it makes me appreciate Gavras all the moreso for his ability to create depth from the situation.