Voie rapide (2012)
Directed by Christophe Sahr

Film Review

One of the most auspicious directing debuts of 2012 is that of Christophe Sahr, who, ten years after he wrote the first draft of his screenplay, finally succeeded in bringing his modern take on Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment to the big screen.  It is not hard to see why Sahr had such difficulty finding a financial backer for his film.  Voie rapide is a genre-spanning oddity, having elements of social realist and psychological drama without fitting easily into either of these categories.  That Sahr has been influenced by American cinema is evident both in the fast car theme that propels the narrative and the subtle allusions to Nicholas Ray's Rebel without a Cause (1955).  Yet the film is far from being a conventional homage and it treads what seems to be familiar territory with noteworthy flair and originality.

The central plot idea is one that has been exhaustively used before.  A man commits a crime, thinks nothing of it at first, but is slowly eaten away by guilt and is ultimately driven to seek redemption.  The setting is also familiar: the run-down, over populated suburbs of Paris, where hope is as scarce as money.  That Christophe Sahr was able to take these two well-worn themes and meld them into something fresh and distinctive testifies to his promise as a filmmaker.  The film has its failings - some of the plot developments are a little hard to swallow and there is a slight surfeit of artistic over-indulgence in a few sequences - but these are readily forgiven on account of the stark elegance of the mise-en-scène and the authenticity that leaps off the screen throughout much of the film.

What makes Voie rapide such an effective and rewarding film is that it avoids all the obvious pitfalls and contents itself with telling a simple story without getting mired in sentimentality and stylistic artifice.  In contrast to many of today's social realist dramas, which resort to patronising clichés or over-earnest political posturing, this film presents an honest account of what it is like for today's young people to live on the margins, making the best of what life has to offer and coping with the problems of day to day existence without descending into soap-style hysteria.  Alex's need for escape is something we can readily identify with.  It is obvious that he was forced into fatherhood before he was mature enough to cope with the responsibilities that this entails.  So, still saddled with the mentality of a selfish teenager, he makes his Honda Civic his mistress, lavishing all of his spare time and hard earned cash on her, to the detriment of his partner and their toddler.

Alex, a self-absorbed and generally charmless character, would be extremely hard to engage with were it not for the fact he is portrayed with such realism and intensity by Johan Libéreau.  An actor highly valued by auteur filmmakers, Libéreau previously drew considerable acclaim (and was nominated for the Most Promising Actor César) for his work on André Téchiné's Les Témoins (2007).  Like James Dean in Nicolas Ray's celebrated film, Alex is an egoistical urban rebel who is clearly set on a self-destructive course, driven by an obsessive yearning for speed so that he can escape from the life that is obviously too slow and tame for him.  What makes Libéreau's portrayal of Alex so compelling is that he reveals so little of what is going on in the character's mind.  Alex finds it hard to speak, and even harder to express himself emotionally.  When he knocks down a hapless pedestrian in the course of one of his nocturnal motorway joy rides, his apparent lack of concern is shocking.  It is only when Alex has had time to reflect on what he has done and guilt begins to assert itself that his true character begins to emerge.  Alex's subsequent inner journey towards redemption is all the more poignant for the way that Libéreau underplays it, almost as if he himself is ill-equipped to handle the emotional burden that Sahr places on his shoulders.

Christa Theret is every bit as convincing as Alex's more down-to-earth girlfriend Rachel.  Because her character finds it easier to express herself, she is a far more attractive proposition and we are more inclined to see things from her point of view.  Rachel is the victim, the one who makes all the sacrifices, and so it must follow that Alex is the villain.  At the outset, Sahr and Libéreau seem to be doing all they can to alienate the audience from Alex - just as Dostoyevsky does with his character Raskolnikov - to make the main protagonist's spiritual rebirth all the more profound and surprising.  The most moving scene is the one in which Alex has to confront the mother of the young man he accidentally killed (played with immense sensitivity by Isabelle Candelier).  This is the point at which we know for certain that Alex has a soul and cannot escape atoning for his crime.  The film then follows a fairly predictable course towards its conclusion, but fortunately both Sahr and Libéreau have a few tricks still up their sleeves and the ending, when it comes, delivers one almighty punch.  Let's hope we don't have to wait another ten years for Christophe Sahr's next film - this is something special.

Film Synopsis

Alex is 25, lives with his girlfriend Rachel on a housing estate and has a two-year-old daughter.  The couple both work in a nearby supermarket, but even with their combined income it is a struggle to make ends meet, particularly as Alex fritters away most of his money on his hobby, souping up his Honda Civic.  Alex is a speed junky.  He is only happy when he has his foot on the accelerator and burns rubber on the deserted highways after dark.  It helps to kill the time.  But, one fateful night, he kills something else - a young man who suddenly appears on the road in front of him.  His first reaction is to forget the incident.  There were no witnesses.  All he has to do is to forget about it.  But that is the one thing he cannot do...