Notably co-screenwriter of the excellent Wretched by Ladj Ly, Giordano Gederlini leads a career as a director moving from action films (samurai) to comedy (The War of the Saints). It is to a thriller that he invites us with Between life and death which comes out Wednesday, June 29. A tragic case, where a father is pursued by a gang, after the death of his son following a bloody robbery.
Spaniard immigrant to Brussels, Léo Castaneda (Antonio de la Torre) is a subway driver. He recognizes on the edge of a platform his son whom he has not seen for two years, and who throws himself under his rails. He discovers his involvement in a robbery that went wrong, and he finds the loot. Leo becomes the target of dangerous criminals, while trying to understand the reasons for his son’s suicide.
Franco-Belgian and Spanish co-production, Between life and death is based on a European cast: Antonio de la Torre, Marine Vacth and Olivier Gourmet in the main roles. Both an intimate drama and a criminal affair, the film plays on both counts with the defects of its qualities. Those of a desire to go beyond the codes of the genre but with a lack of tension for a thriller on a Hitchcockian plot (a man is projected into a foreign universe), where the intimate drama takes precedence over the thriller.
Added to this double plot is the portrait of a man uprooted as a Spanish immigrant in Belgium, with the subtext of a bilingual country where tensions remain between Walloons (French-speaking) and Flemings (Dutch-speaking). In this context, the integration of Léo, the foreigner, is all the more difficult. A red thread whose main character is a bit like the avatar of the French director of Chilean origin, filming in Belgium.
Reduced in its duration (1h35), Between life and death, does not gain in rhythm and ends up losing the spectator. The genre film offers itself easily to the treatment of subjects grafted onto a marked and codified framework, but the articulation between the thriller and the intimate is not completely successful here. Between life and death does not demerit but does not completely fulfill its contract.
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Gender : Thriller / Drama
Director : Giordano Gederlini
Actors : Antonio de la Torre, Marine Vacth, Olivier Gourmet, Fabrice Adde, Nessbeal, Tibo Vandenborre, Marie Papillon, Noé Englebert
Country : France / Belgium / Spain
Duration : 1h35
Exit : July 29, 2022
Distributer : The pact
Synopsis : Leo Castaneda is Spanish, he lives in Brussels, where he drives the line 6 metros. One evening, he catches the eye of a young man at the edge of the platform. Feverish eyes of distress, a familiar face… Leo recognizes his son Hugo when he tragically disappears on the tracks! Leo, who had not seen him for more than two years, will discover that Hugo was involved in a bloody robbery. He will have to face violent criminals to try to understand the reasons for the death of his son.