between paternity and ecological threat, Alice Zeniter and Benoît Volnais question the future

A pregnancy test that shows “pregnant” and Tristan’s life falls into a monumental confusion depicted with force and detail before the collapse, a film co-directed by Alice Zeniter and Benoît Volnais and released in theaters on April 19. The hero of the film, played by Niels Schneider, discovers the object of his future torments in an anonymous letter. “What terrifies me is to think that I behaved like a guy who could be sent an anonymous pregnancy test and thought it was a good idea”launches Tristan, a bit desperate, to his friend and confidante Fanny, played by Ariane Labed.

Together, they dissect the problem of Tristan who never really intended to reproduce. The young man has been living for years with a sword of Damocles: he does not know if he carries a genetic disease that he could possibly pass on to his offspring. To carry out the investigation of his life, four tracks are available to the young man: Mati (Sephora Pondi), his colleague on the electoral campaign of which he is the campaign manager, “The girl from the bar” (Elsa Guedj); the caregiver who takes care of his father (Ana Blagojevic) or even Pablo (Souheila Yacoub), with whom Tristan has had an episodic relationship for several years.

Loans from the theater

before the collapse is a first film. The writer Alice Zeniter, Goncourt prize for high school students in 2017 for The Art of Losing, co-wrote and co-directed it with Benoît Volnais. In his first cinematographic work, Zeniter seems to have used many of her other talents: story organized in chapters, chiseled dialogues and a staging that often refers to the theater (the playwright directed the four plays of which she is the author).

The theatrical device is, for example, used for one of the film’s key sequences: the one that sets the scene and launches the investigation that Tristan the detective will lead for a little less than two hours. The exchange, between Tristan and Fanny, is the one that the first could have had with himself, in his head…

Inside Tristan’s head

Niels Schneider, feverish at will, perfectly reflects the upheaval that his character is going through for whom the “shit” accumulates. To the excitement of the campaign for the legislative elections of Naïma (Myriem Akheddiou) and the need to take care of her father, is added the fear of not being able to identify the woman who is expecting a child from him. Also, Tristan is often dripping with sweat from the unusual heat that prevails in the early summer when the film opens. His physical discomfort reinforces his uneasiness. The Zeniter – Volnais duo also draws a parallel between the inner chaos of their hero and that which threatens the planet because of global warming. The subject is a theme heavy withbefore the collapse and is at the origin, among other things, of a crisp exchange which underlines how much Tristan is caught up in other concerns. His personal future, which he hadn’t really thought about, almost taking precedence over the collective future.

before the collapse also draws its energy from its decorations which are essential as tools of narration: the city and its tall buildings give way, little by little, to vast green spaces. Tristan and Fanny even treat themselves to a getaway to the sea, comparable to a decompression chamber for all the emotions buried since the famous test reached Tristan. For their first fiction feature film, the duo formed by Alice Zeniter and Benoît Volnais has produced a formally rich work which, in substance, thanks to appetizing dialogues, contributes its stone to the many questions raised by the environmental crisis.

The sheet

Gender : Drama
Director: Alice Zeniter and Benoit Volnais
Actors: Niels Schneider, Ariane Labed and Souheila Yacoub
Country : France
Duration : 1h40
Exit : April 19 2023
Distributer : Pyramid Films Distribution