Oublier Cheyenne

The title is intriguing: what on earth is this film going to be about? When the first pictures appear on the screen they don't tell you much yet but at once captivate you by their strangeness and beauty: at a crossroads, in the night, a traffic light turns from red to green to red again and so on. Underneath, a lying figure stirs: it must be a homeless person. A ghost car crosses the frame and vanishes, then another. The cars multiply in the once deserted street. Meanwhile the traffic light invariably goes red, green, red, green... At last the homeless person - a woman it appears -wakes up and gets up while the opening credits roll against the newspaper she had been lying on as a backdrop. There is no specific answer to the initial question. The viewers still wonder: will this visually superb introduction give rise to a socially committed work (as the presence of the homeless woman suggests) or to an aesthetic one (judging from the elaborate colors, frames,geometrical shapes)?

Both actually, as they soon find out, and much more, since "Oublier Cheyenne" is about politics, philosophy, sex and love, and - a crucial point - NEVER AT THE EXPENSE OF ART AND STYLE. Given its subject, Valérie Minetto's film could be boring, moralizing and dry but the filmmaker never forgets art, sensitivity and originality. Any minute of this film is beautiful (the image -both mental and real- of the galloping horse), unexpected (with its characters going through walls, addressing the camera or speaking in the mind of others), relevant (the bitter portrait of our society crushing the individual) and moving (the true love that unites Sonia and Cheyenne in spite of everything).

And let's not forget Aurélia Petit's intense performance nor Malik Zidi's endearing charms. This is for sure one of the best French art films shown lately. Well done Miss Minetto!