Marmaille: the discovery of a filmmaker [critique]

The first 100% Reunionese production in Creole to be released in mainland France, Grégory Lucilly's film offers a fascinating portrait because it is devoid of any cliché of this island.

This film is a great first. The very first 100% Reunionese production shot in Creole to be released in mainland France. But Brat is not just that and is even located precisely at the antipodes of a picturesque object which would allow us to see this island from the sole angle of its postcard landscapes. This first feature film is first of all the culmination of a desire for cinema and to tell stories born at the age of 9 but above all of a writing process thought out from the start so as not to be filmed than in Reunion with actors from Reunion, otherwise it would lose all its interest.

Brat features Thomas, a 15-year-old teenager from Reunion who dreams of only one thing: winning a breakdance competition and leaving for the metropolis. But this goal will suddenly be undermined by their mother's brutal decision to kick him out with his sister Audrey raising her baby alone. To avoid ending up on the street or separated, Thomas and Audrey have only one solution in front of them: to be placed with their father whom they had never met until then, himself remarried and father of two other children. . A family recomposition which does not necessarily go without saying.

Brat seduced by the finely crafted writing of these different characters, rich in contradictions and the situations they encounter. This absence of Manichaeism, the filmmaker's taste for delving into human complexity and the quality of the interpretation of non-professional actors as talented as Maxime Calicharane and Brillana Domitile Cain in the main roles, make each twist and turn credible and keeps you in suspense until to an ending that we would have liked to have been a little less abrupt. A fault that we will happily forgive given the way in which Lucilly shows without pretense or miserabilism the harsh social reality of Reunion Island, which constitutes an essential part of her first feature. A success.

By Grégory Lucilly. With Maxime Calicharane and Brillana Domitile Cain, Vincent Vermignon… Duration 1h32. Released December 4, 2024