X
- 2022
- R
- Netflix
- 1 h 39 m
- 2022
- R
- Netflix
- 1 h 39 m
Summary After the death of his youngest brother following an alleged police altercation, Abdel (Dali Benssalah) is called back from the frontline to find his family torn apart. Caught between his younger brother Karim's (Sami Slimane) desire for revenge and the criminal dealings of his older brother Moktar (Ouassini Embarek), he struggles to cal...
Directed By: Romain Gavras
Written By: Elias Belkeddar, Ladj Ly, Romain Gavras
- 2022
- R
- Netflix
- 1 h 39 m
- 2022
- R
- Netflix
- 1 h 39 m
Athena
73
5.6
Where to Watch
Summary After the death of his youngest brother following an alleged police altercation, Abdel (Dali Benssalah) is called back from the frontline to find his family torn apart. Caught between his younger brother Karim's (Sami Slimane) desire for revenge and the criminal dealings of his older brother Moktar (Ouassini Embarek), he struggles to cal...
Directed By: Romain Gavras
Written By: Elias Belkeddar, Ladj Ly, Romain Gavras
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 22 Critic Reviews
73
73% Positive
16 Reviews
16 Reviews
27% Mixed
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 22 Critic Reviews
73
73% Positive
16 Reviews
16 Reviews
27% Mixed
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
This electrifying new film from director Romain Gavras starts as it means to go on: with a riot and fireworks.
A war epic between the people and the state, it sprints through a grassroots resistance movement like a brushfire: Blinding, dangerous, all-consuming.
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 39 User Ratings
5.6
54% Positive
21 Ratings
21 Ratings
21% Mixed
8 Ratings
8 Ratings
26% Negative
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 39 User Ratings
5.6
54% Positive
21 Ratings
21 Ratings
21% Mixed
8 Ratings
8 Ratings
26% Negative
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
However calculated for effect, it is a very good mix of everything it wants to show. The unsolvable situation, the different brothers (former soldier, overzealous martyr, dealer)... Everything is here: the situation of former immigrants, the intractability of acceptance, the different culture and a potentially inactive (in the end very active) possibly terrorist. The opening cut is amazingly good. Actually a strong 7-8/10, but it goes up to 9/10. (10/10 clearly "La haine" : )
Report
O filme é um caldeirão de explosões sociais: xenofobia, pobreza, truculência policial, tudo isso em meio às novas redes sociais e canais de comunicação organizando aquele micromundo.
Meio teatralizado e com várias cenas sem cortes, a violência, ainda que plastificada, causa certo reboliço e não está de forma gratuita. O ritmo é excelente, embora peque por alguns excessos, como os diálogos, por exemplo, que poderiam ser melhor explorados em certas pausas (veja como o filme cresce quando ocorrem poucos momentos de contemplação).
Tudo isso na França, berço da civilização moderna que nos deu o legado da "igualdade, liberdade e fraternidade". Só não é uma obra-prima porque lhe falta mais densidade, já que as cenas de ação respondem por toda a mensagem que quer passar, em resumo, uma guerra civil nascente. O fato de seguir a família de 4 irmãos, cada um com um papel social diferente, fez com que o roteiro, com falhas, se elevasse, uma vez que temos aqui diferentes pontos de vista que se entrelaçam a todo o tempo, sem pausas para pensarmos qual o lado certo de toda a confusão. Um excelente filme para percebermos a influência dos extremismos no mundo onde a tecnologia cabe no bolso, onde ainda há a presença da exclusão urbana em meio à inclusão digital, ou seja, num mundo cada vez mais tecnológico cujas raízes da desigualdade não conseguiram ser liquidadas.
Report
Athena is shocking, partly because its events seem only about five minutes in our future. One could place its powder keg neighborhood in any city in any divided nation, particularly here in the United States, where another “war that pits brother against brother” seems at least as probable.
While the film’s emphatic style can become draining, and its attention to technique risks overshadowing the interpersonal drama, there’s an operatic grandeur here that won’t quit, giving the constantly escalating violence considerable power.
While some of these struggles are specific to the French communities the film follows, they are also universal, with recent echoes deeply familiar here in the US. And despite a morally ambiguous parting note, Athena incisively engages with these battles despite a brassy style that at times overpowers them.
It’s spectacular and immersive, with a sensational opening. But it gets bogged down in its own one-note, one-tempo uproar and open-ended parkour camerawork – impressive though that is – and suffers from a number of sneaky false-flag get-out clauses that feel like a cop-out.
As a sustained piece of action choreography, then, Athena is frequently staggering. As a drama about police violence, the woes of a long-ignored underclass and the complexities of modern French identity, the movie feels thin and overdetermined.
The constant threat of racial intolerance and police brutality, put on the table in a drama narrated in an almost documentary style that makes one think that it is based on real events. It is to freeze the blood of the most indifferent.
Report
The narrative goes out the window, and yes, some of what it does at many points feels more exploitative than anything else, especially considering themes like police violence and racism, but I get that the idea is chaos and not lecturing, and if you do as I did, once you accept that that's its angle, you'll start to enjoy it better.
Report
(Mauro Lanari)
"Urban epic symphony immortalized in a giant video clip with a magniloquent epic breath," self-sabotaged by an aestheticization of violence and anger, by a pathos that overwhelms the logos tripping over the sensationalism of the melò action, pumped up and pompous: once finished mastering drones, steadicam and long take, it's all over. Spurious fruit of the virtuosic form of Cuaròn/Iñárritu and of the theme of the banlieues in flames of Kassovitz/Ladj Ly, it is not clear to me why prize after prize rains down on them while Gavras jr. would be "hysterical, unproblematic and ideologically disconcerting".
Report
Glorification of vigilantism and crimes disguised as victims. Unreflective and staged like a third-rate war film, the film does not deal with social problems either emotionally or in terms of content. The film may be an outpouring for young petty criminals. everyone else shouldn't even tune in and waste their time with this nonsense.
Report
Production Company
Iconoclast,
Lyly Films
Release Date Sep 9, 2022
Duration 1 h 39 m
Rating R
Awards
Venice Film Festival
• 2 Wins & 3 Nominations
Allywood Film Critics Association Awards
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
Gotham Awards
• 1 Nomination
