Orage (2015)
Directed by Fabrice Camoin

Film Review

Orage, Fabrice Camoin's first feature, is loosely based on Marguerite Duras's 1960 novel Dix heures et demie du soir en été, which had previously been adapted for cinema by Jules Dassin as 10:30 P.M. Summer (1966).  Camoin is by no means fresh to the movie business - he has already directed two short films and been busy over the past decade and a half working as an assistant on films for cinema and television, including Arnaud Viard's Clara et moi (2004) and Léa Fazer's Notre univers impitoyable (2008).  His first feature is a distinctive variation on the road movie theme which shows some promise on the directing side, although the film is somewhat let down by a fairly vacuous script that is disappointingly lacking in character depth and dramatic impact. 

Camoin broaches several important contemporary themes in his debut offering, notably racism, but these are dealt with half-heartedly as the film's author struggles to come up with something meaningful to say.  The characters are pretty stereotypical but the chemistry between the leads Marine Foïs and Sami Bouajila helps to at least partially redeem a film that is at times unbearably overwrought and lacking in direction.  Marine Foïs is particularly convincing as a middle-aged woman who has lost her zest for living and embraces a somewhat perverse way out of present woes.  Bouajila is an easy shoe-in for a somewhat two-dimensional character but he makes an effective counterpoint to Foïs's more ambiguous and more disturbing Marie.  Louis-Do de Lencquesaing and Valérie Donzelli are both completely wasted in archetypal roles that have no depth whatever and fail to engage our sympathies.

Aside from the surprisingly effective Foïs-Bouajila pairing, Orage's main asset is its peculiar atmosphere - a brooding, sustained sense of claustrophobia which it derives from Camoin's decision to shoot most of the film in close-up.  This has the effect of tying the two main characters together, emphasising their mutual dependency as they seek escape from a present that threatens to crush them.  There is no physical attachment, yet they become as chained to one another as Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier in Stanley Kramer's The Defiant Ones (1958).  If only more effort had gone into the script, Orage could have been a powerfully moving study in identity, but, lacking in substance though it is, it still manages to hold the attention, thanks to its strong central performances.

Film Synopsis

Marie is en route for a holiday in the sun with her husband Pierre, daughter Judith and sister Louise when they get caught in a violent rainstorm.  Forced to break their journey, they take refuge in a hotel in a small town close to the Spanish border.  This same day, the police are out in force, hunting a man named Nabil Malek who has just murdered his wife and her lover.  As she contemplates her own unfulfilled existence, Marie, an alcoholic depressive, catches a glimpse of the fugitive and approaches him.  She offers to hide him and then, seeing an easy way out of her own problems, she talks him into fleeing with her to Morocco.  Confused as to Marie's motives for helping him, Malek has no option but to put his trust in her...