Arrested in 1905 for the murder of a 12-year-old child, a 17-year-old peasant seminarian confesses to doctors.
Posted yesterday at 7:30 a.m.
This true story is blood-curdling. It begins in the most unbearable violence, while our anti(hero) decapitates his young victim. Even if he will immediately deliver himself to justice, the assassin will show no remorse for his gesture.
But who is Bruno Reidal? The mystery remains whole about this shy teenager with a soft voice and an angelic face. The powerful script leaves the judgments to the locker room, sticking to its point of view. A morally ambiguous choice which obliges the moviegoer to invest himself emotionally with this being left to himself.
Naturalism à la Zola is never far away in this study of man who transforms himself in contact with his environment, holding back pain and misery so as not to metamorphose into a wild beast. Hard not to think about the masterpiece Me, Pierre Rivière, having slaughtered my mother, my sister and my brotherby René Allo, especially since the religious dimensions are also part of it.
The film, however, goes elsewhere. Bruno hides a part of his life, exchanging his “unhealthy” sexual desires for murderous impulses. Not only does he embrace the most disarming loneliness, unable to communicate with anyone the evil that gnaws at him, but his impression of living an empty, bland and monotonous existence also desensitizes him to everything that happens, somewhat in the same way as the protagonists ofElephant and of Paranoid Parkby Gus Van Sant.
Playing Bruno Reidal at different ages, Dimitri Doré, Roman Villedieu and Alex Fanguin are astoundingly interior. Jean-Luc Vincent (a regular at the cinema of Bruno Dumont) also delivers a solid performance in the skin of the renowned doctor Alexandre Lacassagne.
By searching for humanity in the darkness, filmmaker Vincent Le Port offers a first feature that will haunt us for a long time. Its refined staging, its immense formal beauty and the elegiac music of Olivier Messiaen constantly elevate the story, allowing us to feel this soul in disarray. It may not be the most enjoyable film of the year, but it certainly is one of the most fascinating.
Indoors
Biographical drama
Bruno Reidal, confession of a murderer
Vincent Le Port
With Dimitri Doré, Jean-Luc Vincent and Roman Villedieu
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