The first shot of Athena will be discussed in every writing about the film. A bravura choreography of movement that begins with an intimate close-up of a face and ends, after 10 blood-rushing minutes, with an explosion of revolutionary rage -- a la Les Miserables and Do You Hear The People Sing? transported to a predominantly-Muslim Paris suburb -- that opening shot is so hypnotising and immersive in its non-stop kineticism that we're led to forgive that it's also an earnest show-off, a proud enshrinement of style and attitude over everything else. Romain Gavras, a filmmaker known for making music videos for Jay Z and M.I.A, will cement that approach with many similar shots throughout the film -- long, seemingly uninterrupted shots with parkour camerawork full of angry bodies -- more than enough for aspiring filmmakers of the world to slobber over.
The cinematographer is Mathias Boucard. The script is by Gavras and Ladj Ly, the director of the 2019 Les Miserables (not the musical, but a gritty cop drama set in an immigrant suburb and a precursor of sorts to Athena). The exploration of youth rage in the poor banlieue housing blocks outside Paris has become a subgenre in itself, with roots going back to La Haine (1995) and including non-male offshoots such as Girlhood (2014). But to lump all these films together is not wise: the underlying approach to urban riots, disaffected youth, police brutality and ghettoised resentment in modern France spans a wide spectrum from bare-bone documentary to teen drama, from gangster movies to grandiose stylisation. Athena falls into that last category.
