Les fantômes (Jonathan Millet - 2024)

[spslf]

Best screenplay award, regional and CNC development grants, advance on receipts, funded by Arte, presented at the Directors’ Fortnight, all while awaiting the inevitable César nomination for best first film: this movie nearly achieved a grand slam of French auteur cinema. And indeed, with this film that combines themes of migration x *The Bureau* x the wandering of a man haunted by a painful past in the city, Jonathan seems to have found the perfect formula to win over every commission in this country.

And indeed, there are plenty of admirable aspects. It starts with the migration theme — those quick to grumble may regret that it's not handled by a boomer trying to rejuvenate the local knitting club, but this angle is, in turn, more original, rich, and intriguing. It’s a portrait that embraces the complexities of these situations — people haunted by their pasts, pasts of which the host country knows nothing beyond what is told to it, thus housing both victims and perpetrators (the idea that Europe serves as a refuge for thousands of butchers from Africa and the Middle East, much like South America did for the Nazis, is something I've thought about for a long time, utterly absent from common consciousness because no one wants to consider it, yet I find it fascinating and terrifying, and it is subtly present here). There are ties to family left behind, recreated communities, conflicts that resettle here, the hope for a new life, and both internal and external obstacles. It is rich, intelligent, complex. All of this is set within a “spy thriller,” with an obvious comparison to *The Bureau*. This aspect is equally compelling: a self-organized espionage cell, a group banding together to hunt down their former tormentors, is an excellent concept. It's frustrating that Jonathan made his debut film before the series ended, as he could have directed episodes, which would have been great: the directing is grounded in the same commitment to pure French realism, avoiding American references, relying on what is captured on screen for its scope. It works brilliantly, even better in fact than what Rochant did in *Les Patriotes*: his frames are beautiful, each movement purposeful and effective, the entire direction confident and powerful, beautifully executed.

However.

Where the film could have been a brilliant blend of different cinematic styles, in the end, it’s French auteur cinema and its conventions that prevail, meaning that the director’s intent takes precedence over the screenplay, and that has its price (even editing-wise, one can't help but sympathize with the editor who must have tried two or three times to say, “Well, this scene/shot doesn’t add much more than the one five minutes ago, does it?” and lost every single argument). The investigation to find him is weak, espionage at a kindergarten level, and then there’s that narrative stinginess, the comfort of pausing the story for a good hour to replay the same scene over and over. This is where it becomes tragic, because as intelligent and strong as it is, it inevitably becomes diluted when, after an hour, the film is still drawing on the same ideas introduced in the first 15 minutes, when you literally see the same scene repeated over four months, when your brain is ahead of the character’s. It’s painful to say, but fundamentally, this is a story and screenplay suited for a medium-length film that could have been extraordinary. It’s all the more frustrating — even though I realize that if it were a medium-length film, I wouldn’t have seen it — it loses on all fronts by forcing itself to fit into the mold of a feature-length film. That creates a massive, monstrous lull.

In the end, it remains a beautiful film with many interesting elements, but damaged by its format, by the complacency and comfort-seeking of French auteur cinema and its backers, their inability to push narrative and intellectual boundaries. Even when an idea could allow for some creativity, as it could here, they still stay firmly within their comfort zone, and it’s tiring.
But it was clearly among the best of the bunch.