In his image, Tatami, A dream life: New releases at the cinema this week

What to see in theaters

THE EVENT
IN HIS IMAGE ★★★★☆

By Thierry de Peretti

The essentials

Thierry de Peretti questions both the strength of commitment and the inescapable power of the present through the journey of a Corsican photographer. Fascinating.

The young heroine ofIn his imageadapted from the novel by Jérôme Ferrari, armed with a camera, strives to take into account only the present, refusing to be ” one more trace “. Her accidental death in the first moments of the story allows us to reactivate, through flashbacks, a brief but intense life. Antonia was a young girl from the Corsican mountains, in love and independent, constantly caught up in the fires of the island's nationalism that unfolded chaos around her. Becoming a photographer perhaps meant agreeing to be the witness of a commitment that destroys everything. Antonia goes from wedding photography to war photojournalism, without being satisfied with the artifices of truth. Thierry de Peretti has been ploughing the same furrow since his formidable first feature film, The Apaches (2013) where the notion of belonging (to a culture, a group, a space, a genre…) was already questioned, inducing a nervous floating source of implacable tensions. This magnificent film could also have been called, chronicle of a disappearance.

Thomas Baurez

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FIRST LIKED MUCH
TATAMI ★★★★☆

By Guy Nattiv and Zar Amir Ebrahimi

Zar Amir Ebrahimi (The Nights of Mashhad) goes behind the camera. And this while remaining in front even if this time she is not the central character of the story but embodies the coach of Leila, an Iranian judoka full of hope. Together, they go to the world championship in Georgia and form an indestructible duo… until the Iranian federation decides otherwise. The competition then takes another turn when, in the possibility of finding herself facing an Israeli athlete, Leila is ordered to forfeit. And what if the real fight was finally off the mat? Under the cover of a sports film, Tatami here indulges in a frenetic critique of the Iranian authoritarian regime, taking care to show two reactions to the events without ever passing judgment on either one. The duel is omnipresent, gripping us and never letting go. Then the film disappears and gives way to a cry. That of an insurrection that is only just beginning.

Lucie Chiquer

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FIRST LIKED

A DREAM LIFE ★★★☆☆

By Morgan Simon

Family definitely inspires Morgan Simon. In his first feature film, Counts his woundsit was about a father-son relationship. Here, it is still about a son (Félix Lefebvre, remarkable) but confronted with a mother who is too loving and therefore unloving. Someone who has always juggled with money struggles before they finally caught up with her, deprived of a checkbook and credit card on Christmas Eve. The last straw that will make this (too) close relationship implode. We could criticize Simon for treading furrows already explored a lot by French cinema. But he manages to escape by introducing a third character who comes to shake up the duo. The owner of the bar in his heroine's neighborhood. The first capable of seeing the woman behind the mother, of casting on her that piercing and disturbing gaze that will revive her and break the dynamic of the story. And each face-off between Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi-Lubna Azabal alone justifies the discovery of the film.

Thierry Cheze

THE PARTITION ★★★☆☆

By Matthias Glasner

Its original title, Sterben (To die, in French) says it all. The Partition does nothing to make itself likeable. So, here's a word of advice: hang on for the first half hour, which depicts the inevitable physical decline of an octogenarian couple, with unbearable realism. Because once this start is over, this three-hour family saga broadens its scope by focusing on the intertwined destinies of their two children. A renowned conductor about to become the father of his ex's child and his sister drowning herself in alcohol. Two characters who share the same ability to disconnect from their emotions to escape any emotional commitment and whom Glasner seizes with undeniable empathy and without an ounce of miserabilism, even regularly flirting with burlesque farce boosted by black humor. A bold gesture that won an award for its screenplay in Berlin. Here's a word of advice (encore): let yourself be carried away, you won't regret the journey!

Thierry Cheze

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FIRST TO AVERAGE LIKED

MY BEAST ★★☆☆☆

By Camila Beltran

In Colombia in the 1990s, 13-year-old Mila enters the fateful age of adolescence. Meanwhile, the devil threatens to make an appearance during a lunar eclipse… For her first feature film, Camila Beltran has the good idea of ​​borrowing from fantasy cinema to tell the story of her character's quest for independence, torn between a deviant stepfather and a more or less devoted mother. But this coming-of-age story would have had more impact if the director had not had fun playing with the limits of her staging, oscillating between a jerky image that is almost unbearable, and a clumsy use of special effects. This Animal Kingdom on Colombian soil is fortunately saved by the captivating performance of the young Stella Martinez.

David Yankelevich

And also

The old way, by Hervé Mimran

Reprises

The Lord of the Rings – The Fellowship of the Ring, by Peter Jackson