2023-05-11 09:39:40
A young investigator and a methodical FBI agent track down a mass murderer with atypical motivations. Its abyssal blackness, the moral ambiguity of the assassin, the balance between efficiency and complexity, make “Misanthrope” by Damián Szifrón a worthy heir to “Seven” and “Silence of the Lambs”.
The foreground of the film approaches the city of Baltimore, on New Year’s Eve. The image is reversed, sky below, buildings above. An immediate way to warn us that the story we are about to witness will not simply turn our stomachs (the film remains very sober on this level), but turn our world and our vision of humanity upside down.
While the population exults against a backdrop of fireworks, around thirty people are coldly shot down by an invisible sniper. Bodies crumble, screams ring out, panic grips the city. A staggering preamble, of dry violence, which introduces Eleanor Falco (Shailene Woodley, also producer here), a young investigator who has arrived at the building from which the shots came. The mass killer has evaporated, his nebulous motivations leave the police helpless.
>> To see: the trailer of the film
Intuitively understanding the logic of the assassin, Eleanor is recruited by Geoffrey Lammark (Ben Mendelsohn), FBI agent in charge of this case. The duo gropes, confronted with the logic of power of superiors obsessed with the media, and Eleanor, addicted to drugs, suicidal, asocial, questions her own demons to get closer to the one she seeks to apprehend.
Damaged characters
Argentinian filmmaker known for a sketch film with caustic black humor, “The New Savages”, Damián Szifrón orchestrates this relentless thriller with a rigorous, dry, harsh staging that takes the time to follow the laborious procedures of an investigation. avoiding a lot of clichés inherent to the genre. The highlights (a shooting in a shopping center shown through surveillance footage) do not exclusively dictate the progression of the story, which is more attached to its characters than to the permanent suspense and the spectacular.
At first erased, often on the margins of the initial sequences, Eleanor Falco gradually asserts herself as a fascinating heroine, fractured, damaged by existence, who contrasts ideally with the FBI agent, an almost paternal figure whose integrity is threatened by the hypocrisies of his superiors.
As for the mass killer, whose French title rather stupidly reveals the deep motivations (the original title, “To Catch a Killer”, or “Attraper un tueur”, remains much more suggestive), he reveals himself to be at the antipodes of a an almost biblical figure of evil à la John Doe in “Seven” or a superior brain worthy of a horror tale à la Hannibal Lecter. Just a man, wounded, bruised, tired of a humanity to which he prefers the image of a herd of cows peacefully enjoying life.
Shailene Woodley and Ben Mendelsohn in “Misanthrope”, film by Damián Szifrón. [Pathé Films]
An abyssal darkness
If “Misanthrope” appears less multiple in its reading grids than, say, “The silence of the lambs”, it nevertheless digs some fascinating thematic tracks, such as the compromises that life forces us to accept, the artificial convolutions of power, the violence against animals, the cult of firearms or the deep hatred that our species can inspire.
The abyssal darkness of the whole, the moral ambiguity of the assassin, the inner upheaval experienced by the heroine, the perfect balance between efficiency and complexity, make “Misanthrope” a worthy heir to “Seven” and “Silence lambs”. One of those rather rare films that sticks in your memory and sticks to your skin like tar.
Rafael Wolf/eye
“Misanthrope” by Damián Szifrón, with Shailene Woodley, Ben Mendelsohn, Jovan Adepo. To see currently in French-speaking cinemas.
1683801524
#Misanthrope #relentless #staggering #thriller #rts.ch