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[CRITICAL] The ODYSSEY

We were able to view The ODYSSEY in the framework of the festival of Angoulême. Our opinion on the other films of the festival : HERE

The ODYSSEY is of course the biopic of jacques Cousteau (Lambert Wilson, who does not quite make us forget the actor behind the character), but it is the adventure of a family, dedicated entirely to the sea and underwater exploration. We see the rise of the adventurer visionary, its development in the United States and its ability to integrate the marketing in his work became a business. They are the excuse to shine the spotlight on the entourage and discuss his joys, his sufferings, his wanderings.

Simone (Audrey Tautou, whose physical transformation is remarkable) is the wife who shares and encourages the dream, but who sometimes forgets to be a mother. As for the two wires, there will be the reckless Philippe (Pierre Niney, in which the game manages to move us) who spend time to seek the light and the gaze of his father… And the more cautious Jean-Michel (Benjamin Vernhe), will hang forever this look and of which it is a pity, as the storyline is based on his story, not to learn more about his feelings.

”The Odyssey plunges us into the throes of the family adventure of Commander Cousteau .”

The director Jérôme Salle (Zulu) has chosen to evoke the point of view of Philippe in the face of this great family adventure. With the underlying questions : how can a child exist in the shadow of a man admired of all ? Where to find the oxygen absorbed by a father ? How to avoid to reproduce the same schema ? Must symbolically kill the father ? The staging of these questions is a bit melodramatic, with effects that are too underlined which are not gaining in emotion.

The images of the film are certainly beautiful (scenes with the sharks or the whale) but drown a little too much about. The dark side of the Commander, a man hardly sympathetic, is certainly mentioned, and his ecological conscience saved in fine waters… But the best moments of The ODYSSEY are those of sharing and the simple joy of the family to take the plunge, lost in the limbo of the infernal spiral in which the Commander has trained.

Sylvie-Noelle

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TRAILER

INFORMATION

Original title : The Odyssey

Realisation : Jérôme Salle

Screenplay : Jérôme Salle, Laurent Turner, after Albert Falco

Main actors : Lambert Wilson, Pierre Niney, Audrey Tautou

Country of origin : France

Released : October 12, 2016

Duration : 2h02min

Distributor : Wild Bunch Distribution

Category: Uncategorized

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