A French drama about far-right radicalism

Directors Delphine Coulin and Muriel Coulin’s new drama centers on a close-knit, loving French family. quiet son (Playing with fire), home is where the heart is, and politics may be best left at the doorstep.

Unfortunately, the opposite ends up happening to hard-working single father Pierre (Vincent Linden), whose eldest son Fosse (Benjamin Watson) takes a complete right turn and joins a group of thugs in Radical thugs committing acts of violence nearby.

How do you prevent your children from pursuing political beliefs that are diametrically opposed to yours—perhaps dangerous beliefs? Wouldn’t it be better to let them go their own way and hope they eventually come around? Or will you try to intervene at some point, risking pushing them in the wrong direction?

These questions guided the Culins’ gripping and well-acted fourth feature, adapted from Laurent Petit Mankin’s 2020 novel. As Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party rises to prominence in recent French elections, quiet son This effort could not be more timely. After premiering in competition at Venice, it’s expected to gain some appreciation overseas.

Set in the Grand Est of France, where decades of rising unemployment have opened the door to a wave of far-right radicalism, the story follows Pierre, Foss and his brother Louis (Stéphane Crepon) After several months of dangerous drifting apart.

It all started with an amateur football match that Foss won for the local team – football was the main pastime and rallying point for French nationalists in towns like theirs. (A similar scene can be seen in Lucas Belvoir’s ” this is our landwhich traces the rise of National Front candidates in northern France. With his son.

From that point on, things spiral out of control, although the Coulin sisters take the time to observe the gradual changes in behavior between Pierre and his two sons, who themselves are almost polar opposites. Fosse was a charming, athletic bad boy who, at 22, was still living at home. Louis, on the other hand, was pale, thin, and shy. But he was also one of the best students in his high school graduating class. With his father’s help, he had been applying to universities in Paris to study literature.

It would be easy for directors to portray Pierre’s family as a place of constant tension and confrontation, but at the beginning of the film, this is far from the case. The first thing we see is a loving family of three men, supporting each other as best they can and trying to fill the emotional abyss left by their mother who died before the film begins.

But as Fosse falls further into the hands of his radical associates, Pierre discovers a world that a proud leftist blue-collar worker like himself had never known before. In one telling sequence, he follows his son to an abandoned factory filled with skinheads lifting weights and participating in mixed martial arts, like some kind of fascist French fight club.

When Pierre tries to confront his son (which he does multiple times), the gulf between them only widens further. “We’re just cannon fodder!” Foss yelled at his father, explaining that his degree in metallurgy was worthless because there were no jobs anyway. The directors contrast this reality with Pierre’s steady job as a nighttime SNCF technician repairing train tracks, which looks like the last vestige of France’s glorious industrial past.

Lyndon has played working-class characters many times throughout his long career, with recent films including in war and measure of a person Both films, directed by Stéphane Brizé, document the struggles of contemporary French workers. As such, he falls naturally into the role of Pierre, a man who works nights so he can raise his sons during the day but inevitably finds one of his sons alienated from him.

The Kulins were careful to emphasize that this was not Piet’s fault, but that in a place and an era, many young people embarked on the same political path as Fosse (Foss’s name is the abbreviation of “Fosse”). footballas his German mother used to call him).

Tensions rise further when Fosse clashes with radical leftists who appear to be as violent as the skinheads. He returned home scarred and requiring hospital treatment, and Pierre was by his side every moment. We think, or at least hope, that this will mark the end of Fosse’s far-right activities and that he has finally learned his lesson. But he finally broke away from his father’s control completely, and tragedy happened.

Voisin gives breakout performance in 2021 Balzac adaptation disillusionmentpersonifying Fosse’s many contradictions with explosive restraint. In some scenes, he’s playful and seductive at the same time—a fun older brother who likes to hang out, joke around, and lie around watching sports on the TV. In others, he becomes very withdrawn or aggressive, acting like a wounded animal and constantly attacking those around him.

One person Fosse avoids harming is Lewis, the brilliant Crepon (bureau) is described delicately and tenderly. As the only member of the family to make it out of a small Rust Belt town, Louis represents Pierre’s dreams and Fosse’s thwarted opportunities, but the two support him at all costs. Perhaps the most heartbreaking scene in the show quiet son (A better title than French, which translates to Playing with fireWhen Louis was preparing to move to a small new apartment in Paris, but there wasn’t enough room for Foss in the car, he missed his brother’s big moment.

The directors interweave these difficult moments with joyous friendships, such as Louie’s graduation party where everyone dances to old-time rock ‘n’ roll. But even so, when Foss learned of Louis’ college plans from others, he found himself abandoned. He was driven in one direction and his family in another, with them going left and him turning right, ending up on a path of no return. What began as a political incident became deeply and painfully personal.