Valley of the Fools – What to see

Drama by Xavier Beauvois – 2 h 00

The rain-soaked November sky remains low and heavy. Jean-Paul appears as a disconsolate widower. He moves the furniture out of his house, under the resigned eyes of his daughter Camille. He moves back in with his old father. The hero has sunk into alcohol without even realizing it. His restaurant, called Les Quarantièmes rugissants, no longer attracts many people. He’s hit rock bottom. The kick that could bring him back to the surface would be surprising. He solemnly announced to his father and daughter that he would be taking part in the Vendée Globe… virtually. A crazy, funny, unrealistic project, but one that’s full of panache.
Enrolled on Virtual regatta, a real-time simulator of the Vendée Globe, he will spend three months in isolation, sailing around the world from the back of his garden. If he wins his virtual challenge, his financial troubles will disappear. Almost alone in his belief, he holds firm. For this garden-variety skipper, overcoming alcoholism, coming to terms with his widowhood, regaining the affection of his loved ones and regaining the helm of his drifting life means above all succeeding in fighting his demons. The film explores the intimate adventures of a freshwater sailor in the middle of a storm. Jean-Paul Rouveliterally inhabited by his role, delivers an impeccable soloist’s score. O. D.

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Our review of La Vallée des fous, an immobile odyssey full of panache

The Kingdom – What to see

Drama by Julien Colonna – 1 h 48

There’s something rotten in the kingdom of Corsica. A kingdom without a vain Danish prince, his arm trembling at the thought of avenging his father. Without a princess either. Lesia, motherless, is an ordinary high-school student. She is brutally dragged out of this adolescent paradise by a man on a motorcycle. He takes her to an isolated villa. There she meets her father, Pierre-Paul, surrounded by a group of serious-looking men. They slap Lesia on the kisser and go about their business. It’s 1995, a time when television chronicles the settling of scores and car-bomb explosions. The young girl observes and listens as she prepares the kitchen. Nothing is made clear, but we understand that Pierre-Paul is an undercover gangster surrounded by his followers.
The film doesn’t explain what brings them together. Mafia or political, the motives remain vague or intertwine to conjure up an archaic and violent clan war. Director Julien Colonna doesn’t judge it. There’s even a touch of fascination in the way he looks at his men, silent and polite outlaws, despite their ineluctable race towards death, a fatum worthy of a Greek tragedy. The Kingdom is reminiscent of the magnificent À bout de course by Sidney Lumet, starring River Phoenix as a teenager tired of running away with his activist parents. The ambiguous ending, between atavism and emancipation, reminds us that the mystery of filiation sometimes smells of blood. É. S.

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No Other Land – What to see

Documentary by Basel Adra, Hamdam Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor – 1 h 35

West Bankers cry out in despair at the sight of their homes reduced to rubble. The camera films their every reaction. Basel Adra, a young local who records their testimonies, seems to have sworn to himself that the images must circulate. He is the co-author and main character of this documentary. Basel Adra has found support in Yuval Abraham, an Israeli journalist who has taken up the cause of the residents of Massafer Yatta. During the day, the duo beat the countryside, camera on shoulder. In the evening, in the smoke of a chicha, they take stock of the day’s destruction during informal discussions. Yuval, for his part, is more optimistic, despite the evil looks he receives from some Palestinians.
The Israeli and the Palestinian chronicle, simply and without artifice, asphyxiated villages that live only in fear of construction machinery. Inhabitants help each other when a house falls. Furniture, TVs and pots and pans are rushed to a cave, for want of anything better to do. Voted best documentary at the Berlinale in 2024, No Other Land is a tough, quiet film that dispenses with militant rhetoric. B. P.

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Good one – What to see

Drama by India Donaldson – 1 h 30

In the wake ofAnora Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or winner, American independent cinema is back in the spotlight. A resurgence of form highlighted at the last Cannes Film Festival, and particularly at the Quinzaine des cinéastes, a pioneering section. In the meantime Christmas at Miller’s Point by Tyler Taormina and Eephus by Carson Lund, Good One proves that American directors don’t always have oil, and sometimes talent.
India Donaldson’s debut feature follows three characters hiking through a forest in upstate New York. Sam, a 17-year-old teenager, agrees to hike with her father Chris and his old friend Matt. She listens, half amused, half jaded, as they brood over their failures as divorced boomers in their fifties, more losers than villains. She cooks for them, too, as they spat at each other. Sam has all the makings of a “good one”. An unfortunate sentence from Matt tips the pedestrian chronicle into muted violence. Unease creeps into a natural paradise. Without long speeches, with great finesse, the director stages all the debates that have been shaking up male-female relations since Metoo. É. S.

A missing part – What to see

Drama by Guillaume Senez – 1 h 38

In Japanese cars, the steering wheel is on the right. Jay (Romain Duris) has become accustomed to this detail. This Frenchman has had to get used to many other things. For example, local law prevents him from seeing his daughter. Shared custody, visiting rights – the law doesn’t seem to envisage any of these solutions. On the other hand, alimony is mandatory. The cab driver criss-crosses Tokyo, day and night. This “gaijin” knows the city so well that sometimes his colleagues call him to the rescue. His job takes his mind off things.
In his apartment, he has kept Lily’s bedroom intact, tattooing her name on his hip. One morning, a schoolgirl in uniform climbs into the back seat. She’s on crutches. Is it her? Glances are exchanged in the rearview mirror, where he’s hung a stuffed octopus. Between the two of them, a complicity develops, against all odds. In A missing partGuillaume Senez, to whom the theme of fatherhood seems to be dear (Our battles), avoids melodrama. He prefers to describe everyday life, to show weariness and revolt, and to spare us the picturesque. The film shows Jay lingering in squares to observe other people’s children, their games, their cries, their laughter. We can sense the melancholy that is devastating him. É. N.

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Gladiator II – Avoid

Ridley Scott’s Peplum – 2 h 30

At 86, the British director throws his last strength into the battle. Gladiator II opens with the siege of Numidia (North Africa). The Roman fleet, led by general Acacius (Pedro Pascal), crushes this rebellious people. A butchery followed by a mass grave. Acacius has his doubts, but he’s a general, for the better and for the empire. A brave barbarian, Hanno (Paul Mescal), is taken prisoner, brought to Rome and sold to a gladiator master (Denzel Washington). The plot of Gladiator II is more or less the same as the first opus (Latin word). Hanno is none other than Lucius, son of Maximus (Russell Crowe). And he, too, has to save his skin at the Colosseum after a crash course. Scott renews the bestiary of his Roman bullfight. Hanno takes on long-toothed chimpanzees and an angry rhinoceros.
The highlight of the show is a naval battle in the arena transformed into a pool. It’s infested with sharks, an ecological and historical aberration.
This poetic license seeks to compensate for the absence of any real stakes, and the lack of depth in the characters and those who embody them. With the exception of Denzel Washington, a charismatic actor. It’s not just an image. We don’t know whether Gladiator IIa masculinist vision of the world, is a Trumpist blockbuster. But we’ve known Scott to be more sensitive to the cause of women. Alien, Thelma and Louise or The Last Duelan interesting post-MeToo portrayal of medieval mores. É. S.

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