A Fierce Franz Rogowski Can’t Save This Debut – The Hollywood Reporter

A younger Belorussian makes an attempt to make the harmful journey throughout the EU to join the French International Legion whereas a younger insurgent chief in Niger and his sister try to assist their folks survive the ravages of post-colonialism in wildly uneven Berlinale competitor Disco Boy.

A dedicated, intensely bodily lead efficiency by German actor Franz Rogowski (not too long ago seen in Ira Sachs’ Passages), luminous cinematography courtesy of ace DP Helene Louvart, and stirring digital music by composer Vitalic all come collectively to make this a sensuous, hanging movie expertise. However, yeesh, that script by director-screenwriter Giacomo Abbruzzese is a large number — a lumpy mixture of foolish supernatural parts and indigestible arthouse pretension, all garnished with an outright steal from Claire Denis’ infinitely superior 1999 French International Legion-feature Beau Travail. However by all means, you would possibly as effectively steal from the very best.

Rogowski’s Aleksei is first met touring to Poland from Belarus on the pretense of going to a soccer recreation along with his buddy Mikhail (Michel Balicki), the 2 of them filled with laddish enthusiasm and daring-do. However whereas attempting to illegally cross the border, marked by a river, into Germany, issues go mistaken and solely Aleksei makes it to France. Judging by his 1,000-meter stares into the space, he won’t ever be the identical — but when he makes it via the coaching for the Legion and survives 5 years with the forces, his reward will likely be a French passport, no questions requested.   

A very good-sized chunk of time is then taken up with considerably boilerplate coaching montages as we watch Aleksei and his comrades get coated in mud and push their our bodies to the sting of endurance whereas a sergeant shouts as them. All of it might simply as simply have been reduce and pasted from numerous different movies about troopers at bootcamp, besides that Vitalic electronic-dance-music rating makes all of it really feel a bit extra 21^st-century.

In the meantime, down within the Niger Delta, charismatic insurgent Jomo (newcomer Morr Ndiaye, who hails from Gambia initially) is commanding a unit that’s resisting the forcible seizure of land by petrochemical corporations, though the precise nature of the battle isn’t defined terribly effectively. A gap sequence that pans over a room filled with sleeping our bodies means that among the motion could also be happening in a dream world. It’s onerous to inform, and one will get the impression that Abbruzzese, making his function debut with this after numerous shorts, is glad to let issues stand shrouded in thriller.

In any case, Jomo’s one golden-colored eye rhymes with that of his sister Udoka (artist Laëtitia Ky), and the 2 siblings share a close to psychic connection. That maybe accounts for the way, within the latter half of the movie, Udoka and Aleksei discover one another in a Paris nightclub after he and Jomo have a brutal confrontation in yet one more river.

There’s actually one thing evocative about the best way Abbruzzese movies the rivers in Poland, Niger and Paris, marshy locales the place the waters of historical past wash characters just like the aforementioned collectively in its swirl. There’s clearly a deep effectively of sympathy for these trauma-afflicted folks, from each Japanese Europe and Africa, who discover themselves washed up on opposing sides in conflicts that in the end profit solely the wealthy. However all of them really feel extra like emblems fairly than characters, even Aleksei.

No less than Rogowski and Ky are expressive sufficient dancers so as to add a little bit of emotional ballast via their use of motion, however that’s probably not sufficient to floor the film for viewers anticipating one thing meatier. No less than Louvart’s jewel-bright, saturated cinematography is persistently dazzling, even when feels a bit like a style movie with documentary parts.