Athena is Romain Gavras’s latest French film that showcases the chaos and tragedy that follows when a young boy is brutally murdered in the Athenian Community. Soon after, allegations are pointed at the French police, having already witnessed a recurring pattern of police brutality. Frustrated by the injustice, the youth of the community decide to take things into their own hands, which leads to further destruction and loss.
Athena is directed by French filmmaker Romain Gavras who’s made films like The World is Yours and Les Misérables. The film stars Dali Benssalah as Abdel, Sami Slimane as Karim, Anthony Bajon as Jerome, Ouassini Embarek as Moktar, Alexis Manenti as Sebastien and Karim Lasmi as Imam. The runtime of the film is 97 minutes.
-Mild Spoilers-
Athena Review
The film begins with a shot of Abdel, a soldier who speaks to the press about the loss of his brother. The perpetrators, who are alleged to be police officers, have not been caught, and the number of police brutality cases is on the rise. As the French police make a statement to calm the public, we see a group of masked men in black hoodies standing in the shadows.
In a matter of seconds, chaos ensues as the leader, who we later find out to be Abdel’s brother, Karim, throws an explosive at the station as the rest of the group begin to vandalize and destroy the property and steal the police safe with all the weapons. A stolen police van with all of the young men and the weapons is taken to their hideout and one of the members hoists a French flag in the air to symbolize the beginning of their revolution.
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The film is theatrical where the violence is portrayed using fireworks, bright lights and French operatic music. There is no time to grasp the depth of what each character is experiencing due to the constant riots and gunfights. There are times when all the characters are just screaming and making noise which gets repetitive after a point and makes you lose the essence of the story. Little time is spent on fleshing out all of the characters.
We get to see the two sides of the story, the community of Athena, which has been taken over by the youth, is portrayed as grim, post-apocalyptic and destructive and on the other hand, the police who see the youth as problematic and violent and does everything in their power to silence them.
We see how between all the back and forth, the characters don’t really have any control over what’s going on or what the end result of all this chaos will look like, but they are motivated by their frustration and anger and feel violence is the only way they will get results. You feel for both Karim and Abdel for the loss but also feel frustrated at times at Karim when he is unwilling to hear his brother out.
In the chaos of it all, a police officer is held hostage so as to get information on the men who killed Idir. The climax of the movie is definitely shocking and unexpected. It leaves you wondering what exactly happened to the boy and why.
Final Thoughts
It’s interesting to see how the women in the story have been pushed to the side. There is one instance when Abdel is trying to silence his sister because he’s frustrated by her brutally honest words and another time when a young woman, who is one of the fighters, is told to get grape juice by a male character. All in all, the movie has its moments and does help highlight the discrimination experienced by members of the minority community and the extent to which one has to go to be heard when such a tragedy occurs.
Athena is streaming on Netflix.
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