Edgar Soberon Torchia
Belgian film from 2003, the first part of a trilogy that I had never heard of and that was recommended to me by a cinéphile friend, precisely, from Belgium.With only this movie Lucas Belvaux is a candidate to enter my personal Olympus of Filmmakers. I do not know how the other two movies are yet but this one is good cinema, shocking, sober but extremely violent. It has been 15 years since it was made but it still stands as a solid production with a forceful story. Belvaux himself (who made an acting career in France) leads the cast as Bruno, a leftist ex-militant who escapes from prison, where he has served 15 years of a sentence. Outside the world changed, but not his head. Bruno returns to settle accounts to those who were traitors to the cause, to fight for the proletarian masses, to exterminate the oppressors: so convinced is the man that he unleashes a wave of violence and manifests features of extreme cruelty that catch you by surprise. Now I'm going for the second installment, in which characters that were secondary in the first one come to the fore. Winner of the Prix Louis Delluc and the award of the French Syndicate of Cinema Critics for Best Film of the Year.
runamokprods
The first part of Belvaux's 'The Trilogy', where three films with very different tones overlap some characters and incidents. This first part is a taught, well made, violent thriller, following an escaped communist revolutionary, determined to return to the bombing and violence that put him in jail 20 years ago, while settling old scores with enemies, and re-contacting old allies. Belvaux shows daring in not working to make his character very sympathetic, and allowing our initial almost automatic sympathy for our lead character to be ever more harshly challenged. We come slowly to realize this is a violent zealot, unmoved by the fact that the revolution that seemed to make sense as a young man now seems arbitrary and insane, and that his callous disregard for his victims isn't much of a start on a new world order. In a vacuum, this dark, cynical noir would still be a good film, but with the next part of the Trilogy, it gains in levels and meanings. There are real flaws here – a few plot twists are hard to buy, some character behavior unclear (although less unclear after part 2). A guy this smart wouldn't make a couple of the mistakes he does. And the score is frustratingly repetitious. But it's never boring, always involving, and with the next film, it's something more.
Polaris_DiB
A man escapes from prison. He then tries to meet his old contacts and re-organize his underground inner circle involving drugs and revolution. However, he does this only to find that most of his fellows-in-arms are either dead, locked up, or have abandoned the revolutionary lifestyle and *GASP!* sold-out by getting families and jobs! Discovering this lack of societal significance, he is eventually forced to flee the country, after which he both literally and symbolically falls into a gap of nothingness. Aw, what a shame.(That's it, by the way. That's the whole movie. Erm... spoiler alert?)As a technical treat and a minimalist story, it has its value and it is interesting to watch. It's just a little obnoxious to follow a movie about a person grasping to uphold his values only to "randomly" (as a point) fall into a blank hole. I get it, but I don't care for it.--PolarisDiB
jfurioli_2000
It is when you alone know the truth and the rest of the world is controlled by the enemy. You can trust no one since the enemy corrupts everything. You must use all means since the enemy is so much stronger than you. This film shows you from the terrorist perspective his path out of jail and back to his struggle from 15 years ago. First, you are with him, escaping the police, fleeing, contacting former comrades and then, little by little you get to know the face of his murders. The question is here: how can one justify such acts ? Well, Bruno, the terrorist, cannot. When he starts arguing, he can only repeat over and over the same mantras without confronting the reality under his very own eyes. And then the corollary question: if 15 years later, when the world has changed, a terrorist can resume his fight while he is the only one left, what to expect in a time where many think his cause is just ?
AD
