scene from athena, Stream on Netflix.
Photo: Courtesy of Netflix
The most memorable scene in this year’s film was devised in part as an attempt to beat your attention span. Athena, Romain Gavras’ fascinating tale of massive modern-day riots at a French housing project, opens with one of the most memorable single shots ever made to film. An intense, seamless 11-minute sequence that begins with a press conference outside a police station. , burst into erupting madness when a group of young men stormed a train station, and eventually, just over a mile away, was taken over and fortified housing complex due to a spectacular and inevitable clash with the police. It ends towards the castle-like ramparts.
The director wanted this opener to accomplish a number of important tasks: introducing his central character, establishing the grammar of the picture, and the (fictional) Athena housing project in which most of the film takes place. Set location. But we also wanted to make sure we grabbed the attention of the average streaming audience. “It’s his first time making a film for a platform, especially for Netflix,” he says Gavras. “And when he was writing the song with Ladj Ly, who also served as a producer, he thought we had to start really strong because even if you’re watching a Netflix movie, the first five Because if it’s not fun in a minute, I’ll quit right away.” Over there. In contrast, he says, “When you’re making a film for a movie, you don’t leave after 10 or 15 minutes, so you can soften people up.”
Remaining Athena Filled with brilliantly choreographed, seemingly untethered sequences of chaos, filming the first eleven minutes required an almost supernatural degree of coordination and care. When first presented to longtime editor Benjamin Weil with the idea of building a film out of long takes (or “sequence shots”), Weil objected. “At first he was like, ‘Hide yourself! Don’t do one-takes. They’re losers or to show off. It’s annoying.’ , by Mikhail Kalatozov i am cuban and Sergey Bondarchuk war and peace To Star Wars When citizen cane — Reason for decision Athena At its core, it’s a Greek tragedy about a group of brothers on opposite sides of a bloody war. was.
To deepen this sense of mythical grandeur, Gavras chose to shoot most of the film in Imax digital using an Arri Alexa 65 camera. The size of the camera required a certain old-fashioned stability in its movement, leading to a different relationship between the foreground and background action, that is, between the character and its environment. The depth of field is different than a normal camera, so when you say it like that, you heroize the character,” Gavras explains.
The cast and crew rehearsed for five weeks before filming. Cinematographer Matthias Boukar has said that he used his handheld camera, a handful of actors and temporary locations to effectively shoot a “bad version” of the entire picture. (Gavras called this ” dog bill This refers to Lars von Trier’s 2003 drama, which uses chalk outlines on a dark stage instead of on location. ) In the actual production they use a large number of background actors. project they filmed. Many residents have also worked on film crews.
“We trained them in acting and stunts,” says first assistant director Amin Halfouchi. “The challenge was to choreograph everything and make it look as natural as possible. It’s a perfect symbiosis of different disciplines: actors, extras, stunts, special effects, camera. The synergy had to be perfect. No. For that, there are no secrets, you have to rehearse and repeat, and rigor and discipline were the key words.”
Athena Beginning with a close-up of Abdel (Dali Bensala), a French soldier returning from a mission in Mali, to the assembled press and public, announcing his death aged 13. Idil, a brother who was a victim of police brutality by an unidentified policeman captured on video. When Abdel asks him to calm down, the camera pans to the crowd watching him and moves towards Karim (Sami Suliman), Abdel’s younger brother. It was important to immediately bring the audience’s attention to Karim. Thus, as the camera glides from Abdel to his brother, the focus quickly shifts, turning to Karim. “We go from one brother to another, but we also needed some distance between them,” Bukal says.
A Steadicam-mounted camera slowly approaches Karim, drawing closer to the ghost’s face. Pan down to indicate that the Molotov cocktail is lit. All hell breaks loose when Karim throws it.The crowd gathered around Abdel began to flee, Karim’s black-clad army, their faces
Covered, rush to the station. In the commotion, the camera turns back to Abdel. As he looks around in shock, a car drives through the station door behind him, setting the place on fire.
Photo: Courtesy of Netflix/Kourtrjameuf Kourtrajme
In reality, the very long, uninterrupted sequences that move from location to location, in and out of scenes of crazy violence, are rarely shot as one actual shot, but rather pieced together short elements. Suit you (1917, birdmanand even Alfred Hitchcock’s one-shot classics rope All feature imperceptible cuts that maintain the illusion of a single unbroken take). Gavras doesn’t say exactly where his stitches are — “magicians don’t teach their tricks,” he said.
I’ll admit — but such cuts tend to occur when a quick pan or a large figure (such as a passing actor or column) enters the frame and obscures some of the action. Deception is often required for safety. That’s why, according to Boucard, the cars entering the train station doors were created in layers. The camera movements were completely repeated, first with the actor, then with the car, and during editing he superimposed the two resulting shots. The effect works very well because the background action is a bit blurry and no attention is drawn to itself. We are still looking at actors.
Each character has a different shooting method. The camera keeps its focus on Karim whenever he is on screen, tracking smoothly along with him, telling him that he has complete control over his surroundings. (Gavras compares the characters in these early scenes to his Russell Crowe as Ridley Scott’s Maximus. Gladiator). But for Abdel, who is desperate to quell the uprising and speak his mind to his brother, the camera is far less steady, often pacing around him as if to recreate the unease and confusion. .
The emotional and technical high point of the entire sequence is when Athena’s youth seize a police van after a violent brawl at a train station, speed down the highway, declare a joyous victory, and leave France. flag waving and motorcycles splattering victorious wheelies all over the place. They and the bystanders along the way cheer them on. Initially the camera is inside the van. The camera then follows the vehicle exiting the van and down the highway before re-entering and exiting the van, rotating around it. The scenes are spectacular, but never flashy. Incredibly, there is almost no VFX or cuts either. “I hate green screens,” he says Gavras. “You don’t feel in danger.” was bound to As the car continued, one cameraman who was filming inside the van with the children handed the camera to the other operator outside.
The crew rehearsed repeatedly on the airport runway before filming this particular scene. The movements had to be carefully choreographed not only for technical complexity, but also for aesthetic purposes. “Everything looks like ballet,” says Boukar. “It’s not from the movement of the camera, but from the experience with the young people who are making the revolution.” It’s a sublime, jubilant moment, to be sure, but there’s an undercurrent of melancholy that goes along with it. As Gavras told composer Surkin (who works with Gavras under the stage name Gener8ion), “We have to feel they won the battle, but they I know we will lose the war.”
After arriving at the Athena project (which Gavras sees as another character in the film), the camera enters the building, providing a small but important vignette to establish the geography. Karim, who had previously been the very image of an authority figure, turns into a well-mannered puppy when he urges the elderly residents to stay home. Karim’s minions are also seen testing weapons, such as riot guns and bulletproof vests, seized from police officers.Gavras says he wanted to convey that they are still young people. However, this was essentially to further strengthen Karim’s character and balance “the seriousness of his drive” with “the fact that he is the head of an army made up of children”.
Photo: Courtesy of Netflix
In the final moments of this grand introduction, the camera follows a determined Karim away from the overpass where he and his young companions have gathered. Because of this, Gavras and his team added enhancements to make the viaduct look like the crenellated balustrade of a medieval castle (and add to the film’s timeless quality). One of these ramparts needed to be able to pivot during the shot to make room for the camera to pass. Stitching was necessary here because the camera itself had to be changed from his Imax to something lighter that would fit in the drone. It turned out to be particularly difficult. Boucard says that in order to cut seamlessly between the two shots, he had to make sure the ambient light was the same, and the switch had to be virtually instantaneous. The results are glorious. Beginning amidst the swirling turmoil and chaos, this shot gives us a taut, still panorama of troops standing atop a fortress and waiting for war to come.
And then the movie cuts.