Partisan

Synopsis: 11 year old Alexander (Jeremy Chabriel) and his mother, Susanna (Florence Mezzara), live a communal existence with a group of other women and children and their father figure, Gregori (Vincent Cassel) in a kind of hidden, man-made grotto on the outskirts of an un-named Eastern European village. It seems a loving and idyllic childhood except for the fact that the children are all being trained as assassins. Alexander has grown up seeing the world exclusively through the eyes of Gregori but as the boy starts to think for himself, the father’s hold on this little society begins to crumble.

Vincent Cassel is one of those actors who has the capacity to play the double edged sword of charisma laced with malevolence. We saw him do it in 2011 with Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan and in 2013 with Danny Boyle’s Trance and here  he uses it again to great effect as the patriarch of a strange, cult-like family.  

This compelling film travels along a similar path to Yorgos Lanthimos’ Dogtooth (2009) except that where that film often felt hollow and alienating, this film shares some of Cassel’s dark charisma in the way it seduces us into its largely unexplained and perplexing world.  Its deliberate lack of exposition is one of its many strengths revealing an unusually high level of confidence from a first time feature director, and proves that treating an audience as an intelligent entity capable of deciphering meaning without a lot of clumsy exposition can work a treat, at least when it’s in the hands of skilled actors following a clear vision. We don’t know who these people are, or where they live, or why the children are being trained as killers, or who the enemies are that they target for assassination; and yet we don’t feel disadvantaged by the lack of information. On the contrary, the uncluttered style of storytelling frees us up to focus on the fascinating relationship between father and son that lies at the heart of the movie.

The crunch comes, as it inevitably must, in two ways. The first is Alexander’s inadvertent brush with the outside world that comes in the form of a chocolate bar received while deviating from a mission to do a good deed for his mother. Her response to his act of kindness is unexpected and we begin to suspect that the literal and metaphorical sweet taste of the outside world has started to play on him. The second comes when a new boy, Leo (Alex Balaganskiy), faces off against Gregori over the killing of a chicken. When Alexander works out what his father has done in response to Leo’s defiance, the loving relationship between them begins to sour and the boy begins to become the man who can stand up to his father. As a young actor new to the screen, Chabriel brings great depth and maturity to his role and is a good match for the more experienced Cassel. At one point, Gregori asks Alexander, “What would you rather; be hit by a man, or hit a man first?”  In the moment, Gregori is pleased that his son chooses the latter option, but the way that plays into the film’s climax is more pleasing for the audience than for the father.

At the screening I saw, the feature was preceded by Szifrón’s excellent graduating VCA Film & Television School short film Deeper Than Yesterday (2010). Even at that early stage in his career, his ability to let the image do the talking and the context of the story and its characters provide the exposition was plainly evident. As a first feature, Patriot confirms his credentials as filmmaker with a unique eye and a strong voice, and whets the appetite for what will come next.

 

 

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