Athena

ATHENA is an urban war movie with a political touch by Romain Gavras who follows the lead of his father -the Greek well known director and screenplay writer- Costa Gavras. The film is all about how the lives of 3 French siblings with an Algerian descent immerse into chaos after the death of the fourth younger brother under unclear circumstances. The pain of the loss becomes rage and then... BOOM! Everything explodes at ATHENA building complex in Paris and the social strife begins. Although the film has all the necessary elements to be mentioned as a contemporary Greek tragedy and besides the insane long take opening scene it also has a lot of weak spots and blurry motives.

I was expecting a lot more from this film because I am long time admirer of both Romain Gavras work in music clips, and acting of Dali Benssalah. First of al good things: visuals!!! Piece of art, starting from first scene all the way to the very last moments of film.

Secondly very good acting by leading roles, although unrealistic emotions at some moments ruined truly epic performance. You could definitely see a lot of talent here, but really bad script, so many plot holes, mistakes and goofs. Shortly speaking film started with somewhat around 8.5 and then steadily going down. No deeper meaning or cliffhangers definitely didn't save overall poor film. 6 is being very generous and only because pros I've mentioned was at high level.

THERE IS NOTHING SMALL ABOUT ATHENA. THEREFORE, THE ONLY WAY TO DO JUSTICE TO THIS MOVIE IS TO WRITE A REVIEW IN CAPITAL LETTERS.

IT STARTS WITH AN ATTACK ON ALL SENSES IN A SHOT THAT SEEMS TO STRETCH THROUGH THE ENTIRE MOVIE.

THE MASS SCENES OF UNREST GIVE YOU AN INSIGHT HOW A SIEGE IN ANCIENT TIMES HAVE LOOKED LIKE. AND WITH DIFFERENT COSTUMES AND WEAPONS, YOU MIGHT HAVE HAD A FEELING OF PARTICIPATING IN A BATTLE BACK THEN.

AND JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT ADRENALINE IS EVERYTHING ATHENA HAS TO OFFER, THE AUTHORS OPTED FOR EMOTIONS AND REACHED THE HEIGHTS OF AN ANCIENT GREEK TRAGEDY. THE CHARACTERS HAD TO MAKE DIFICULT CHOICES, TO SAY THE LEAST.

THE RUNNING TIME OF ROUGHLY 90 MINUTES WAS THE RIGHT DECISION. EVERYTHING BEYOND WOULD BE PERSIFLAGE.

IF I NEED TO SUM THIS ALL UP, I'D SAY ATHENA WAS MORE OF AN EXPERIENCE THAN MERELY A FILM. IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME A MOVIE I STREAMED DIDN'T MAKE ME REACH FOR THE FAST-FORWARD BUTTON. IT FELT AS IF SOMEONE WAS PUNCHING ME IN THE STOMACH DURING THE WHOLE DURATION OF THE MOVIE.

IF WE ARE TO TAKE A LIGHTER APPROACH TO THIS REVIEW, ATHENA WOULD BE HATE (1995) MEETS TROY (2004).

IN TERMS OF IMDB STARTS ATHENA IS AT THE TOP OF THE RANGE.

Athena is a bleak, almost dystopian look at the near future of France, a country familiar with racial tensions. We follow three brothers: Karim, a revolutionary leader of the community in revolt, Athena (Salimane), Abdel, a respected military man (Dessalah), and Moktar, a drug dealer (Embarek), as they reel from the death of their brother Idir, at the hands of police.

The death, supposedly the third in one month, leads to an uprising reminiscent of the 1871 Paris Commune, where the city essentially seceded from France for a year. Athena follows the chaos and starts with possibly the best intro of 2022: a blistering, intense one take that introduces the movie with an incredible bang. It's so good I've watched the intro itself three times.

But Athena doesn't let up from there; this isn't a movie that bogs itself down in drama and conversation. It's high octane, kinetic, and a feast for the senses. This is a gorgeous movie; the cinematography so perfectly captures the chaos and finds beauty in it. There are literal shots from this movie that I could see being album covers. The music is epic; orchestral mixed with booming synth that gives this very contemporary story a timelessness. It's as if we're watching an ancient siege take place in the 21st century. I can't gush enough about the amazing music, especially that sinister main theme.

The performances are also excellent; Salimane and Dessalah in particular convey a lot with their facial expressions; I fully understood the dynamics of their complicated relationship even though they shared the screen together quite briefly.

When I first watched Athena, I was a bit disappointed by the lack of substance to the story; while we get clues as to why the anger that is displayed in the film - the anger of immigrant communities vis a vis their interactions with the police in suburban Paris - the world we're entering isn't *fully* disclosed to us.

There are also some plot developments that I don't think make a ton of sense, and the movie begins to falter a bit for me by Act III. There's a plot development and we're sort of rushed into a the third act; the people I watched this movie with were shocked the movie was ending so quickly. It felt like we could've and should've gotten more.

But, the fact that I could watch this movie with others and know they'd be entertained is kind of a miracle. The French tend to make films about their society collapsing along racial and religious lines quite a bit. It's something I would never really expect to see from American filmmakers, and it's incredible to see it so often from France (I'm thinking of movies like Frontieres, Les Miserables etc.).

If you want to introduce audiences to French cinema, you really can't get better than Athena. It's an incredible, accessible, and very rewatchable movie. I highly recommend it, because I guarantee you're probably not going to see anything like it.

...too much of everything. It makes the impression that the director and the d.o.p. Were working for their reel and their reputation instead for the film. The long shots, the fire works, the steadycam shots, the drone shots...everything is kinda used all the time and frequently without serving any purpose except of being there and looking cool. And thats the biggest problem of the film. It feels like the wet dream of any music video director, but not like an generic and authentic film. It lacks of bravery to look ugly...sure it looks good if a dude on a horse is riding through the smoke weaving the french flag in the middle of a revolt...but does it really need to be there?