During the Cannes Film Festival, Konbini shares his favorites with you. What is November? The name Cédric Jimenez should ring a bell. It would be a very nice understatement to say that his previous film, Bac Nord, was talked about, and revealed (for good and less good reasons) its director. The latter returns with Novembre, a film that recounts the five days of investigation that followed the attacks of November 13, 2015, to find the two terrorists. Everything is carried by a substantial cast: Jean Dujardin, Sandrine Kiberlain, Anaïs Demoustier, Lyna Khoudri, Jérémie Renier, Sofian Khammes, Sami Outalbali, Stéphane Bak… Given the controversies over the politicization and recovery by certain personalities from Bac Nord, we were entitled to fear this film. Fortunately, the exact opposite happened. Why is it good? November raises several questions. On the gesture of the filmmaker, and on our relationship to these events. Let’s say it right away: it’s a difficult, painful film. Cathartic, even. Jimenez has the intelligence, and the modesty, not to show too much. Inserting cinema into his story, he is obliged to show painful things, but limits himself to a minimum. Fortunately, because the little that we see tears the stomach. The first ten minutes of the film, which relate the attacks from an organizational point of view, hurt terribly. To the point where one is entitled to wonder if it was not too early to tell this story. Across the Atlantic, we know how to manage national dramas through the seventh art, with gestures in pure reactivity. With us, it is more rare. In this sense, we had to try. Above all, the director does not tackle the attacks head-on, but what followed. Modesty is also felt in the filmmaker’s staging. Where Bac Nord impressed by the realization of its action sequences close in their DNA to those of American blockbusters, Novembre is more restrained, less imposing, more timid – modest, again. The substance prevails over the form. This does not mean that there are no great sequences of pursuit, or tension, which are reminiscent of the mastria of a Denis Villeneuve during his Sicario. On the contrary. It’s just that Bac Nord is a western, a real one, where Novembre is a thriller, an investigation film which is therefore, on paper, more classic. With the weight of this traumatic event, the tweezers are enormous. However, Jimenez manages to make movies, to create tension, to move. Knowing how to place your camera at the right time in the right place. The comparison with Bac Nord seems obligatory, and November wins in exchange. Through this concern to do well and to be withdrawn, to pay great attention to what he shows and tells, Jimenez moves away from the pro-police bias of his previous film. Here, doubt is allowed. We are moving away from a heavy Manichaeism. The agents have faults, the protocol serves a purpose, everyone has a certain pressure and there are collateral victims. Everyone is in a tunnel, has only one objective, and few tools. The race is on. All supported by a cast where no one steals the show, where everyone is in their place, for an ensemble film. What do we remember? The actress who stands out: Anaïs Demoustier, by far the most interesting The main quality: An intelligence of the script that avoids facilities, and a sufficiently modest staging The main flaw: Perhaps too painful to watch for some A film that you will like if you liked: Zero Dark Thirty by Kathryn Bigelow , Sicario by Denis Villeneuve and, in a way, Bac Nord It could have been called: Five Days The quote to sum up the film: “A cathartic thriller, painful but necessary”
Leave a comment