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PostPosted: Tue Mar 09, 2021 1:42 pm 
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HÉLIER CISTERNE: FAITHFUL/DE NOS FRÈRES BLESSÉS (2020)

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VINCENT LACOSTE (CENER) IN FAITHFUL

The true story of a young Frenchman executed in the war for Algerian independence

In the retitled Faithful (De nos frères blessés, "Of Our Wounded Brothers"), Fernand Iveton (Vincent Lacoste) is a French citizen born in Algeria, then a French colony, who joins the war for independence with Arab and French comrades. He is caught planting an unexploded bomb in his workplace (he is a machinist) in Algiers and eventually is tried and executed for this action by guillotine, a procedure that is shown in some detail. This touching and in some ways beautiful story happens to focus on a place and time covered by one of the best films ever made, Gillo Pontecorvo's Battle of Algiers. Why bother? Director Héllier Cisterne can't match the unforgettable tumultuousness and precision of Pontecorvo's film.

One question is the casting. Neither Vincent Lacoste as the young Fernand nor Vicky Krieps as his wife Hélène (Vicky Kreps), a veteran of Polish oppression, makes a strong impression. When at one point Hélène refers to Fernand's "slightly goofy smile" ("ton sourire un peu débile") it reminds us that Lacoste began as a comic actor playing a gauche, pimply teenager in his debut film The French Kissers/Les beaux gosses, who fit the role well. In the twelve years that followed he has become a well known, admired, and very prolific actor with 35 credits. Lately he has taken the place of Louis Garrel as Christophe Honoré's muse, and was acknowledged to be a great success in Honoré's semi-autobiographical and pretty serious Sorry Angel/Plaire, aimer et courir vite. This remains his most complex and successful role so far and shows he can do serious work in the right kind of context. But he still seems a bit goofy, with a toothbrush mustache here, despite the solemnity of the sad events depicted, and the character of Fernand is far from fully developed.

Screenplay and direction don't collaborate here with Lacoste to deliver a clear and memorable piece of work. Fernand Iveton's story shows only indirectly the brutality of French colonial repression in Algeria. The police tortured pirsoners, but the film doesn't show the torture, only bruises. Fernand's comrades plot other actions, but we don't see them. Fernand and his French "brothers" are the champions of Algeria and the Arabs, but the film waits 30 minutes before introducing a scene that has Arabs as the main movers in it.

The screenplay stutters and is confusing. It begins with Fernand on a brief trip to Paris for medical tests, where he falls in love with the self-assured Hélène, who has escaped from Iron Curtain Poland, and they fall in love with each other's dedication to principles. Hélène, later sometimes to her regret, agrees to go back to live in Algiers with Fernand, bringing her teenage son Jean-Claude (Jules Langlade, who hasn't much to do). The story, unwisely, is depicted in the screenplay with flashbacks in between excerpts from Fernand's trial, which drags out a procedure that notably was, in teal life, very rushed. Along the way the complexities of Fernand's commitment and Hélène's regrets tend to get lost. Meanwhile as the personal story fails to emerge with sufficient passion and complexity, one feels the detail of Pontecorvo's film, the intensity and complexity of the Algerian war for independence, slipping by somewhere, not quite perceived.

Faithful/De nos frères blessés ("Of Our Wounded Brethren,") 96 mins., according to IMDb has one festival debut only at the Festival International du Film de Saint-Jean-de-Luz, and opened in French cinemas Feb. 24, 2021. Screened at home online for this review as part of the all-virtual Rendez-Vous with French Cinema Mar. 6, 2021. French theatrical release Mar. 23, 2022: AlloCiné press rating 3.1 (62%).

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