"There is at the beginning of the book (by Sylvain Tesson) a very beautiful sentence which sums up his journey by speaking of a 'life reduced to its simplest expression'", notes Jean Dujardin, headliner and producer of Sur les chemins noirs, pedestrian film by Denis Imbert adapted from the eponymous story by Sylvain Tesson (Gallimard, 2016). Zoom out: in 2014, the 42-year-old writer-adventurer fell from the roof of a chalet in Chamonix (Haute-Savoie). Fractured and awakened from a coma, he suffered serious physical and psychological consequences. As he says himself: "I had taken fifty years in eight meters. To repair himself, he sets himself a challenge: to cross France on foot following a diagonal from Mercantour to Cotentin. Walk, survey the "black paths" of old rural and pedestrian France, away from the roads. Re-educate your body, but also embrace hyper-ruralness by savoring the unexpected, the mystery, all that is the substance of life.
With a single camera, Denis Imbert follows Jean Dujardin, backpack and walking sticks, on the old mule tracks of the Mercantour where the feet slip on the scree. The opportunity to marry in an almost telluric way the secrets of a grandiose nature that is not easily conquered, to return to the essential things: lighting a fire, sleeping under the stars, letting yourself be guided by slowness. It is a long road to redemption, the rebirth that the actor plays in a minimalist way in order to be as close as possible to this story filmed on the bone and where Joséphine Japy, Izïa Higelin, Anny Duperey appear furtively , Jonathan Zaccai and Dylan Robert. At the end of this exhausting journey, there is simply the image of a man who enjoys "disappearing into geography", and an actor who enjoys regenerating himself there.
On dark paths, indoors.
After Atlanta, a strange and captivating series on the middle of hip-hop, its clashes and its fraternities, camped in the city of the same name, Donald Glover returns, assisted by Janine Nabers, with a new brilliant idea, but no less crazy. It features a young American, Dre, a hardcore fan of the R'n'B singer Ni'Jah, directly inspired by our international Beyoncé, whose die-hard fans no longer need to be demonstrated. In the first episode, a violent trauma turns Dre's devotion into a deadly road trip, following in the footsteps of everyone who criticized the singer on social media.
This gory dive into a filthy America, between strippers and drug dealers, repentant obese and obsessed with the trigger, is electrified by the acting and the incredible presence of Dominique Fishback, organic, massive, fascinating in his criminal madness (beware, it stains) as in the obsessive and perilous dance she leads, from sledgehammer to hammer blows, towards her idol, even to the bite... Playing with ultra-realism, cynicism and trash, exposing the deadly mechanics of social networks as well as the disenchantment of an America swollen with poverty, violence and hungry for money, Swarm is carried by a brilliant soundtrack (signed Michael Uzowuru, producer and composer who has notably collaborated with Beyoncé and Rosalia) and enlightened exciting cameos (Paris Jackson, Billie Eilish). An excellent delirium.
Swarm on Amazon Prime.
Drawing Now Art Fair, from March 23 to 26 at the Carreau du Temple (Paris). www.drawingnowartfair.com
La Petite Messe solennelle, by Rossini at the Athénée Louis Jouvet theater from Thursday March 23 to Saturday April 1.
