Athena - 2022
Updated: Feb 4, 2023
This review contain SLIGHT spoilers.
It is rare that I have two such polarly different reactions at the conclusion of a picture. Yet, Athena left me in exactly that state of opposites in tension: Breathless and frustrated, awestruck and head-scratching, convinced of genius yet ruffled by a third act gone awry. To wit, a film that is ahead of the curve on so many things visually, and utterly bereft when it really counts narratively.
Much has been made (and rightfully so!) about the ingenious 11-minute oner that opens this story. It really does have to be seen to be believed. The ground it covers, the moving parts and staging, the thrills and suspense built with each new added element - it's one of the more impressive feats of bravura filmmaking I've seen in this or any other year. It is made all the more impressive when we learn that these are not Bay-esque drone shots or CG-assisted hidden cuts. No, this is real workers making hyperkinetic things happen with careful planning and imagination.
So, we know that cinematographer Mathias Boucard has got the goods in spades. Fortunately for the viewer, the visuals are not all Athena has to offer. The film is anchored by a series of stellar performances as well. The most notable is Dali Benssalah, as Abdel the war hero and French-Algerian lawman torn between loyalty to “turf,” family, and his own conscience. Here, the latter is manifested in a career of service to the police force who is sent in to quell this uprising.
Benssalah’s work is incredibly wide-ranging, from the composed voice of reason in the maelstrom to the primal war cries of anguish as the film turns towards its conclusion. The other brother Karim, portrayed here by Sami Slimane, is a Molotov cocktail of seething rage - the very personification of the futility and ire of these disenfranchised people. In some ways, he is “heart” of the picture, but it is Abdel’s “head” which lingered with me.
Beyond the acting and visual flair, Athena’s setup also promises grand things. The narrative is loosely structured around the fraternal relationships and tragedy that would be at home in the literature of Ancient Greece. Now, this is not significant in its own right, but director Romain Gavras wisely utilizes the mythic setup to underscore deeper themes of racial and religious tension, and battles between police and the economic lower classes in modern France.
Here the skill of this framing is manifested by the viewer's uncertainty of just who the villains and heroes are in this picture. In a moment, we identify with Abdel's stalwart moral backbone, and his conviction to establish peace for the greatest number. To keep those out of the fray from harm's way. On the other hand, we feel Karim's devastation and his eye-for-an-eye conviction that they must take the fight to law enforcement in order to force their hand in revealing the perpetrators of this horrible injustice.
Still, there is even a THIRD brother who represents entirely egocentric pursuits. The one attempting to bury his contraband before the po-po fall upon the entire community. He certainly seems to be the most nefarious. Yet, in a few moments, his reactions to the loss of the younger brother at the hands of what appear to be crooked policemen seem the most tender and heartfelt of them all!
So we feel allegiances shifting. The political lines that would declare one group or faction "in the right" blur and become obscured by the human drama onscreen. This is when Athena is really humming. When we somehow want to empathetically stand behind both groups, one or the other, or neither of them all at once. In this fashion, the myth of brothers at odds in crisis actually builds exceptionally well.
But.
Oh, that dreadful word. BUT...we just have to use it here. There is just no other way to parse this one. Athena squanders all of its thematic heft and exceptional worldbuilding in a flash. Simply put, Abdel's "turn" changes everything. On the one hand, it would seem to make sense given what has just transpired. But on the other, Gavras has chosen a complete cop out (no pun intended). Abdel's actions in the third act cede all of the gray middle ground gained by the picture's triumphant ambiguity back to a facile world of black and white.
Consequently, the picture follows suit, and EVERYTHING gives way to spectacle. Performances shift to shouting over nuance. Soon, the film obliterates the tension of opposing viewpoints by flattening the entire conflict. Let me be clear - it is still tremendous to LOOK at, but narratively the picture becomes dull. What Gavras seems to miss is that Athena's weight lies not in simply being visually virtuosic, but in wedding pageantry to the complex real-world struggles of the racially and ethnically marginalized.
I suppose all of this is a real roundabout way of saying that the rest of Athena can never touch the heights of its opening salvo. Yet, that is not ENTIRELY true. No, there are a lot of solid things on display in Gavras' work. Enough, in fact, that I look forward to what he brings to us next. Let's just hope future works balance the scales more deftly.
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