Paris, December 8, 2011,
British film by Steve McQueen with Michael Fassbender, Carey Mulligan, James Badge Dale (1 h 39.)
I / His body literally eats up the screen.
It’s a real challenge to hold your gaze on anything else.
And it’s without the slightest regard for our eyes, which capture every angle and every inch of his plastic – bordering on the superb – that Brandon strolls around naked in his apartment not far from Wall Street.
Her body movements, in a kind of wordless story, unravel and remake the film.
You can almost hear her heartbeat (for Dirty Dancing fans, the famous “it’s a feeling, a heartbeat, cocoon cocoon”).
Against a New York backdrop, we weave the endless race for “eye-catchers”, the 360° urbi et orbi gazing at everything that goes by, the heartbeats of a very strenuous flirting exercise in the subway, porn videos aplenty, sex sites where you impose and dictate your desires to the girl behind the screen, the magical and evil beings of the night and “fuck” parties you don’t know (what) to do anymore.
And wham: sex addiction.
II / Then – without asking her brother’s permission – Sissi arrives, and the word is out.
Sissi, the little sister, blond with dark roots, American vintaged from hat to toe, little covered-too much offered, with the “love me” panoply: mischievous smile and sparkling eye.
We don’t know where she comes from, or for what reason, but there she is, posed as a blonde wonder on the go, singing a bit of “New York New York” (Frank Sinatra) at a slow tempo.
Bedraggled, depressed and suicidal, this young woman shares with her brother the secret of these existences in crisis and these calls for air, which reek of the misery and violence of a bygone age.
This film spits a lot of mist on the windows…
And in the capture of the characters we – too – come to penetrate a little by so many interrupted kisses and truces of chastity, there’s something surprising and moving in this intimate and fraternal relationship, which stands victorious in this properly abject and scandalous magma.
To be seen.
Elisa Palmer
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