Film Review
For his 26th feature director André Techiné turns his critical
regard to one of the burning subjects of our time - Islamist radicalisation
- and uses this as the motor for an intense psychological drama that, whilst
compelling, raises far more questions than it answers. With France
still deeply traumatised by a spate of horrific Islamist terrorist attacks
in recent years, radicalisation is a hot topic and it's no surprise that
many writers and filmmakers have felt the need to deal with it in their work.
Already, there have been two notable French films on the subject - Marie-Castille
Mention-Schaar's
Le Ciel attendra
(2016) and Mohamed Ben Attia's
Mon cher enfant (2018) - and Techiné's
own modest contribution to the debate,
L'Adieu à la nuit, will
doubtless help to inspire further reflection on just why a generation of
young people are so willing to give up their lives and engage in terrorist
atrocities orchestrated by the most dangerous brand of religious fanatics.
Techiné was inspired to make his film after reading David Thomson's
2014 bestselling book
Les Français jihadistes, which contained some
shockingly candid interviews with young French people who have been recruited
to the Jihadist cause. The great schisms that this book reveals - between
the generations, between the comfortably off and those living on the margins,
is succinctly encapsulated by Techiné in his film through the ambiguous
relationship between a sixty-something grandmother - Catherine Denueve in
her eighth Techiné film - and her adolescent grandson - Kacey Mottet-Klein,
who featured in the director's previous work
Quand on a 17 ans (2016).
The incredibly strained relationship between the two principal characters
(we sense a disconnect from the moment they first appear on screen together)
gives the film its emotional and dramatic thrust, via which its authors drive
home some valid observations on the origins of radicalisation - in particular
that it is a product of a fractured society in which individuals no longer
engage with one another in a deep and meaningful way.
A broken society (stemming from the failure of elected goverments to restrain
the excesses of the rich and powerful) inevitably means broken families,
and broken families mean youngsters falling foul of methods of persuasion
from unscrupulous merchants of hate who prey on their vulnerability, romantic
ideals and burning desire to hit back.
The fact that the brainwashed adolescent in Techiné 's film is
an amiable white male from an apparently normal French background reminds
us that it isn't just brown-skinned immigrants who are at risk of being led
astray by Islamic fundamentalism. The threat is far greater than the
populist Muslim-hating bigots will have us believe.
By melding together several disparate genres - intimate family drama, tension-filled
thriller, warped fairytale and astute social commentary, Téchiné
constructs a compelling and innovative film that must surely rate as one
of his most distinctive and impactful, although it falls somewhat short of
his previous masterpieces -
Les
Roseaux sauvages (1994) and
Les
Témoins (2007).
L'Adieu à la nuit certainly has no difficulty holding onto
our attention and emotions (with such gripping central performances it could
hardly do otherwise), but it is somewhat lacking in depth and struggles
to come up with something fresh to say on its grim subject matter. The only
character who feels true to her bones is Alex's down-to-earth girlfriend
(played by Oulaya Amamra, the star of Houda Benyamina's 2016 film
Divines); her reaction to her boyfriend's
radicalisation is more viscerally charged and convincing than that of the
more morally dubious grandmother portrayed by Deneuve.
Whilst Téchiné and his co-screenwriter Léa Mysius succeed
in steering the film well away from cliché and trite emotionality,
you are left with the impression that they are unwilling, or unable, to engage
with its central theme as fully as it deserves. The three main characters
are well-developed, believable individuals, but they are for all that blatant
ciphers too consciously slotted into a far too simplistic analysis of an
inordinately complex phenomenon.
Admittedly, there are some powerfully moving moments and, to its credit,
the film does occasionally throw out the odd photon to illuminate its appallingly
black subject (no doubt particles of light snatched from David Thomson's
revelatory tome). But
L'Adieu à la nuit still leaves
us staring into the abyss, desperately seeking some vague sliver of insight
into the demonic craze that has taken hold of so many young people and turned
them into the deadliest of weapons. The night remains as dark as ever,
perhaps darker still.
© James Travers 2019
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