Athena is a Lit Fuse of a Film
Romain Gavras’ Athena moves at a ballistic pace. The movie opens on a press conference at a police station, but the press conference does get very far—a Molotov cocktail is thrown and everything is thrown into chaos.
The crowd is angry, and rightly so: footage has just surfaced that shows a young boy from the Athena housing project being killed by uniformed police officers. And with their familiarity of how the law typically interacts with Athenians, they aren’t optimistic that justice will be served. They decide to act and obtain that justice themselves, disrupting the conference and stealing armor, equipment, and vehicles from the station before making their way back to their neighborhood.
Over the first eleven minutes, the movie bolts through raided storerooms as fireworks burst in every direction, weaving around swinging lights and crashing vehicles, before finally hitting the road. Oh, and it’s all filmed in one shot.
The whole movie takes a similar approach, extending each sequence out into lengthy pieces that demonstrate the complex and tightly interlocked geography of Athena. As the geography goes, so goes the character building. The story focuses on three brothers—Karim, Abdel, Mokhtar—who’ve chosen very different lives. Karim has found himself the leader of the Athenians, trying to keep their righteous indignation and energy focused on their plans and their aims for justice. Sami Slimane gives a devastating performance, his tension always composed.
On the other end of the confrontation, Dali Benssalah’s Abdel is a police officer who now finds his loyalties stretched to the breaking between his desire for justice and order, his community and his career. Contra to both of them, Mokhtar (Ouassini Embarek) just wants the unimpeded ability to sell his drugs. All of the chaos means little to him other than an obstacle bringing the unwanted presence of police.
The trifold ethics of these characters serves as a heavy handed guide through the conflict. But Athena isn’t interested in subtlety. Its strength flows out of its propulsive pacing, intricate visual setups, and formidable anger. The score does more of the moral lifting than the script, hovering between tense and triumphant. Athena’s cinematography is its boldest aspect, but the structure is an evident accomplishment, as well—Gavras does exceptional work keep the central characters in focus amid the crows and confrontations.
Gavras’ film depicts the zero sum game that unfolds between brutal police, right wing extremists, terrorists, and impoverished citizens simply trying to live with a sense of safety and justice. Any concerns about the looting of police armor and weapons demand equal misgivings about the militarization of police that produced such equipment to begin with. As the stakes rise for both the Athenians and the police, each side makes clear that they don’t want more casualties. And yet…
Athena doesn’t take a “both sides are to blame” stance, though. Its vision is clearer than that. The savage murder of a young boy is both an outflow of and a mere chapter of a police force’s failure to rightly engage with a minority community. It is not one event that leaves Karim and his followers so bereft of any expectation for justice. They’ve seen this play out before, and they know it will again if they don’t act. This is the crucial critique of Athena—at least until the film’s coda. I won’t reveal the twist, but what unfolds in the last minute undercuts much of Athena’s moral potency. Thanks to the strength of the film, it doesn’t completely do so, but the coda is a severe misstep.
Each brother is forced into making decisions rapidly, under enormous pressure. As they pursue their vision of the good, Athena seems aware that none of the options—at least those given to them—are particularly good ones.
Karim, Abdel, and Mokhtar each represent competing visions of how to live in their community. It’s the most intriguing aspect of the film, and one that has a bit more room to unfold. Whoever is in the right here, it’s the community of Athena that inevitably suffers most. One fascinating, quiet moment involves devout Muslims gathered to discuss how best to care for the community. There’s not a clear answer, but they all desire the best for their families and neighbors.
Gavras has crafted a lit fuse of a film that won’t be forgotten soon by anyone who watches. Athena’s thrilling visuals are, unfortunately, more persuasive than its ethos.
