‘Athena’: A cinematic riot of imagination and chaos

• Release Date: 23/09/2022
• Platform: Netflix
• Cast: Dali Benssalah, Sami Slimane, Anthony Bajon, Ouassini Embarek
• Director: Romain Gavras

Romain Gavras’ Athena Is a Cinematic Riot of Imagination and Chaos

The IMDb synopsis of “Athena” reads: “Hours after the tragic death of their youngest brother in unexplained circumstances, three siblings have their lives thrown into chaos.” That is all you need to know about the story before you walk into this film. Anything more would only serve as a spoiler. The film is about 1 hour and 39 minutes long, and almost the entire duration unfolds at a feverish pitch. I haven’t seen too many films that are this on the edge and have so much chaos brewing at different levels of presentation. The story begins with a police station takedown by rioters and culminates in the annihilation of a building complex housing a large number of Muslim immigrants in Paris known as the Athena. Whatever happens in between is what the film is all about.

We have all seen long single takes used as a means to grab attention or accentuate storytelling in different genres of films. In “Athena”, director Romain Gavras takes his story forward creatively using long take sequences where individual sequences of the film unfold as one takes. This ensures complete immersion of the audience in these individual sequences and also ensures that the audience is not only impacted by the sheer madness and chaos of the moments that they are a part of but also understands the random and dangerous nature of the circumstances that are fast brewing out of control because of the different individuals who are involved in it and their different characteristics and approaches that they bring to these moments.

This was one of the most defining characteristics of the film for me as the director intentionally captured moments that didn’t have much to do with the overall story of the film but underlined the insane nature of the people who were involved in the conflict and the madness that they brought to the entire situation. Gavras often looked away from the actual unfolding conflict and took a close look at some of these eccentricities only to fall back on the central plot when one of the major characters came in and shook the other characters back into their senses. This ploy worked extremely well for me.

In all the sequences of the film, Romain Gavras concentrates on one or more characters that he uses as the anchor point on whom the camera concentrates and then moves along with it to various portions of the mise-en-scène to interact with the various elements of the topography. This approach to storytelling does two things. First, it allows the audience to stay rooted with a certain character, ensuring that their attention is always transfixed to the character or portion of the narrative that the director wants to draw their attention to. Secondly, the progression of the events can be easily summarized into bulleted points of progression using the characters in the flow of motion on whom the attention of the camera is shifted, resulting in the flow of the events remaining fluid, intelligible, and impactful.

I watched the making of the film almost immediately after watching the film as I was so interested in understanding how certain things were pulled off in the film. Netflix has an almost 40-minute-long documentary on how the film was made, and it has interviews with the director and other cast and crew explaining how they envisioned and executed certain sequences. For me, the biggest magician of the lot after the director was the director of photography, Matias Boucard. The extent to which he had to go to capture certain things the way they are captured and put on screen was unbelievable. The most complicated and insane portion involving creative camera work was the sequence that begins with one of the key characters entering a zone where the police are clashing with the rioters, and then the camera gradually pulls up, giving us an aerial shot of the events unfolding below. This was easily one of the most thought-provoking shots of the film, and this was not the only one. There are numerous shots of this quality peppered all along the film.

What was shocking for me to note was how much planning must have gone into creating these sequences. If a single player failed to do his or her part, the entire sequence would fall. If the cameraman missed a cue or was late to a certain turn, the sequence would have to be repeated from the beginning. If everything happened as per plan and then the crew learned that a certain portion of the sequences was out of focus, they would have to do the entire thing again. With such odds stacked against a certain vision, it is immensely difficult to pull off something that we see the director and cinematographer pull off in the film.

Benjamin Weill’s editing was another aspect of the film that gave it the identity that the director chose for it. There are obvious cuts in the long take sequences. It is impossible to create one-take sequences of such a complex nature without cuts, but this is where the editor comes in. He has conjured the cuts so successfully and hid them so effectively in plain sight that they are almost invisible to an untrained eye and hence give the feeling of a seamless rendition of the sequences in a way that they were meant to be, resulting in the vision of the director getting realized completely. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that the editing of the film was just as important as the cinematography and the choreography of the sequences, as this was the portion where the vision was not only realized but also finalized by getting rid of all that was lacking or things that needed polishing.

For a film that is so technical in nature, the performances and other dramatic portions of it are generally ignored. That is not the case here. The performances are so on point that it is hard to take your eyes off the actors when they are in complete flow. The manner in which the actors are shot doesn’t allow for them to act poorly and get away with it. Most of the shots of the actors are close-ups or mid-close-ups, giving the audience a complete view of the actors as they emote in said situations. Any goof-ups would be immediately noticed. Hence the ensemble cast had to be spot on from the beginning till the end. It’s not just the ensemble cast; even the supporting actors who are not even named in the film are terrific and help bring the chaotic nature of the world that the film unfolds in to life with utter realism and believability.

Sami Slimane as Karim was my favourite of the lot. He is one of the brothers of the murdered kid in question. He is able to show the impression of the pain and the anger that he is bottling up. It has as much to do with the knowledge that we have about his character as it has to do with his performance. He not only succeeds completely in selling his character and every aspect of it, but he is also successful in extracting emotions and sympathy for his character in the film. His sudden outbursts are exceptional, and the moments that his character shares with that of Dali Benssalah, playing his elder brother in the film, are the best dramatic moments of the film. The camera lingers on his face for long, and he holds his own, communicating a sea of emotions crashing against the walls of the calm that he tries to display on his face in order to be in charge of a minor revolution.

Dali Benssalah as the elder brother of Karim and a war hero for France is terrific. His character undergoes the most pronounced arch in the entire film. He starts off as someone who has accepted a certain tragedy and wants to be at peace with the French administration. However, as the story progresses, and he faces more personal losses and tragedy, he metamorphoses into something that he was not but what most of the youths of Athena were building up toward. This not only shows the toll that the circumstances can take on a thinking man but also underlines the cost of believing something firmly and then being forced to question your beliefs after you are treated in a certain way. Dali Benssalah is able to bring all these nuances to his essay, making it one of the best in the film.

Ouassini Embarek, playing the third brother Moktar, is a different beast altogether. He is not bothered about the death of his brothers. All he wants is to escape the building with his drugs and not get caught. This leads to some interesting altercations between him and his brothers that take the audience on a dramatic high. Ouassini Embarek is brilliant in his portrayal of the erratic nature of the drug dealer and his indifference towards any other cause or relationship except financial gains.

“Athena” is easily one of the most imaginative films centred on a chaotic riot that I have seen of late. It is laced with wonderful performances, has technical prowess on its side, and the director has a grand vision that he is able to execute and put forward in the most shocking and impressive manner possible. Many sequences in the film made me wonder how it would be to watch these sequences on a larger screen. That is the kind of emotion and interest that the film is able to extract, making it one of the best films of the genre to come out in a while.

The film has shockingly low ratings on review aggregators, and I find it inexplicable. Having said that, if you are interested in experiencing 1 hour and 39 minutes of non-stop mayhem laced with strong human emotions, drama, and unbridled chaos, you can check out this film. Don’t forget to watch the making of the film, and then rewatch the film, which will almost instantly enhance your experience and fill you with reverence for the film.

Rating: 3.5/5 (3.5 out of 5)

The views expressed in this article are that of the reviewer and do not reflect EastMojo’s position.

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