Those who shout to the heavens at the forced inclusion of women and minorities in modern adaptations of classics will be right, because even the remake of Italian fascism has changed its male protagonist for a woman. Fuck off, the rise of extremist and hate speech even the Italian institutions is something worrying that can have terrible consequences. Interestingly, one of the latest Netflix original releases talks about that, making it more relevant and urgent.
But it is not that it needs the momentum of today to be powerful and impressive, because it already has incredible virtues that they make it the best movie premiere on the platform this year (‘RRR’ we can’t count as such). Beyond his pertinent speech, ‘athena‘ is slowly rising as one of the most spectacular and overwhelming films of the year.
Between Sam Mendes and Michael Mann
This French film that comes to us through Netflix is signed by Romain Gavras (yes, son of the essential Costa-Gavras), who in addition to directing writes the script with Ladj Ly, the author of the equally powerful ‘Les Miserables’. With the latter it is quite similar, due to its way of making social cinema and Greek tragedy disguised as a brutal tense thriller exercise.
The film introduces us to a Explosive escalation of violence in the marginal streets of France after the death of a young man of Arab descent at the hands of police brutality. His brother (Dali Benssalah), a member of the local police, goes the next day asking for calm to clarify the situation and find the culprits.
But he hardly has time to finish the statement when the police station is attacked by violent protesters led by his other brother (Sami Slimane). All of this is the trigger for a violent revolt against the security forces by the Arab communities of the city.
‘Athena’: a Molotov cocktail made into a movie
The particular thing is that Gavras decide to show it through incredible and superbly constructed ambitious sequence shots (you barely notice the cuts and you can’t stop wondering how they could have filmed them), which manage to introduce you to the boiling pot that is the story you want to tell. There will be no shortage of those who accuse of leaning too much towards fireworks and continuous visual bravery, causing the social drama about racial conflict and police brutality to lose focus.
But that criticism is superficial, since Gavras renounces making a nuanced study of the fractures of the system to, instead, make a portrait of the frustration before it. And the cinematographic tools used they manage to introduce us fully into that explosive sensationmanaging to make a film that works almost like a Molotov cocktail.
Spectacular shots extended for several minutes, also showing the tensions on both sides of the conflict through their leaders, brothers as well. It all creates an explosive but amazing exercise in a harrowing thriller that manages to sit perfectly between Michael Mann, Kathryn Bigelow and Sam Mendes’ ‘1917’ while still having charisma of its own. It does not have the elements to be boosted by the platform’s algorithm, but it is undoubtedly The movie that is most worth watching right now in streaming.