[CRITICAL] HEAD DOWN

In the first minutes of the film, Melvil Poupaud in rogue mind, and then as the story progresses, it appears as an original choice and ultra-relevant. With a charm of its aristocratic, it is hard to imagine, a priori, the French actor to be comfortable with large arm of the mafia in bulgaria. This shift gives all its meaning to a film as audacious, which divert more than a because of its end.

Samy (Melvil Poupaud) is forced to ally with an underage prostitute to dismantle a network of trafficking in human beings and to save his skin. Caught between the police and the mafia in bulgaria to which it is accountable, the criminal French eventually attach it to his companion in misfortune.

The scenario of HEAD DOWN borrows brilliantly items to the reality sticky networks of prostitution for a dip in the crime, which recalls some of the films of Jacques Audiard (On my lips, A prophet and the recent Dheepan) in favor of a quest of redemption that is revealed little by little.

In front of the pile of difficulties, the character of Melvil Poupaud chooses solutions that are very far from the cynicism that one would expect from a stereotype of a gangster, to be revealed little by little heroic, at the limit of candor.

As a counterpoint to the world decaying around him, this character acquires a poetic force. We returned then to our first impression of the actor, to recognize that he has been able to instill into him a personality in full coherence with what we discover in the course of the film. It speaks well of the wanderings of a character shared between a moral and a society which is devoid. This crossing is however amputated a denouement satisfactory. May be to avoid lapsing into the attitude or to catch up with the reality, the director and screenwriter Kamen Kalev chooses an open end, steep after a reversal of the situation consistent but a little easy.

“As the story advance, Melvil Poupaud appears as an original choice and ultra-relevant.”

You lack to HEAD DOWN to the conclusion of a Mustang to give all his strength to the rest of the story. Not to mention happy-end, we would have liked an ending more concrete. However, this dissatisfaction personal takes nothing away from the qualities of the film. The distribution of HEAD DOWN is strangely reduced despite Melvil Poupaud as a headliner and Jean Labadie (Le Pacte) by producer and distributor. The exhibitors have so far shunned the film, finding it may be minor. We encourage you to give them wrong.

Follow @thomas_coispel