James Cameron puts it all back on the line with Avatar: The Way of Water [critique]

The biggest film of 2022 is coming to television this weekend. It's not just “the sequel to Avatar” and its fulfillment. It's also a film where its author puts himself on stage like never before – only to disappear better?

Avatar: The Way of Water will arrive at the end of the weekend on clear television. See you specifically on TF1 on Sunday, at 9:10 p.m. How do you say “First recommends it” in Na'vi?

Avatar 2: which actors play the characters in The Way of Water? [photos]

“The way of water has neither beginning nor end,” we are told several times during the 180 and a few minutes ofAvatar: The Way of Water. However, James Cameron's ninth film (only) spends its time closing doors to better open others – which is also logical for a saga which works to this extent on the notion of borders. Here, on the contrary, there is a beginning and an end to everything. First of all, the film imposes itself immediately and from its end credits as a terminal object: after it the flood – in Hollywood as in our lives as spectators. This is not completely a surprise since since Titanic each film by the filmmaker seems deliberately designed as a point of no return and a possible retreat, either by constraint (“it’s a failure, goodbye”) or by plume (“it’s a hit, goodbye”).

Luckily, Cameron still seems to want to fight. Obviously, this always requires more energy and therefore time (thirteen years between this one and the previous one, twelve between Avatar And Titanic). Almost a quarter of a century, so let him not present us with films “bigger than life”but good “bigger than movies”. The advantage is that this time we will have barely a few months to think about this aberration: barring an industrial tragedy which we dare not hope for, Avatar 3already filmed, should be released in theaters for Christmas 2024. And after him, what? (Note that it is now scheduled for Christmas 2025: all the information on Avatar: Fire ans Ash can be read here)

Despite this, this second part, so massive, so conscious of its own excess, can only be experienced as a consecration, the end, if not of a world, at least of a time. It will therefore not be that of the saga, nor even of the great Hollywood spectacle. For its filmmaker on the other hand, this Waterway completes something essential, an underwater trilogy, begun in 89 with Abysscontinued with Titanicand which probably captures what is most intimate and most obsessive in all of his work. This last part replays some of the best scenes (Papa Jake who thinks he is Mary Elisabeth Mastrantonio and attempts an impossible apnea in the arms of his son, the platform which begins to sink steeply with the lights going out…) everything with an absence of modesty that leaves you speechless. This may be the first time in his entire career that we've seen James Cameron “authorize” so openly. This is never a good sign, of course, especially when it comes from an artist in his mid-70s, except when it leads to scenes that are so phenomenal and embodied. It's a sort of challenge that the filmmaker seems to be launching to himself while openly taking the viewer to task. A gesture of pride as disproportionate as his film. It is Again better, then? In any case with each photogram it tries to be.

And whileAvatar 2 probably marks James Cameron's farewell to the world of the ocean, it also attempts to open the Hollywood spectacle towards a highly spiritual and ultimately very “21st century”. Almost experimental in its way of arranging animist vignettes and long contemplative sequences, the film uses cutting-edge technologies to better collect purely primitive visions (this na'vi baby in the middle of apnea session!). They end up leading to a sort of“ultimate trip” in the middle of an alien reef, and about an awareness that goes beyond the simple framework of cinema. At the bottom Avatar 2 seems to want to single-handedly rebuild the very notion of a great Hollywood spectacle. And the least we can say is that he knows how to lead the way. This is the beginning, may it never end.

Romain Thoral

Trailer:

James Cameron: “The end of Avatar: The Way of Water represents a big gamble” [interview]