[CRITICAL] BROOKLYN VILLAGE

Ira Sachs is one of those which one does not think, instinctively, but whose each new film stirs up our curiosity. Discreet man and one director without esbroufes, it trace its route, in all modesty, since the 90s, in the vast galaxy of american cinema. His new film, BROOKLYN VILLAGE starts on a funeral. Where Love Is Strange, his last, ended. This unfortunate event is going to allow Jake and Tony to meet and build at great speed, a solid friendship. You will quickly recognize the style ofIra Sachs in this way he will show us things with the simplicity (even when they are complicated), we do convey emotions in seeking a withdrawal rather than an explosion out in the open. It is necessary to see how Brian (the father of Jake) collapses in a cage of stairs, following the death of his father to realize that modesty is one of the virtues of the cinema ofIra Sachs. The camera remains at a distance, in the dark, without seeking at all costs to frame her face. The power of the trials of life, the common denominator between these fictional characters and we the audience, will suffice.

Despite the death of his grand-father, everything starts well for the young Jake. Teen uncomfortable with his generation, introverted and passionate about arts, he finds Tony, his new friend, both his opposite and his complement. One wonders how these two characters can so much be found and get closer. This is the secret alchemy of friendship which is described by Ira Sachs, who is to take pleasure in simply going out together to navigate in the city or play video games. Their opposition is also found on the social plan : parents of Jake are the owners of the location of the store that holds the mother of Tony. What is beautiful in BROOKLYN VILLAGE, it is that this implementation of a social hierarchy refuses to contaminate the world of the children to stay for sake of adults. When the relationships between the major degrade, those between the two two young boys reinforce. At this point they engage in a mutual agreement, a strike the floor to try, with their weapons to fight a future dissolution of which they take the full measure that at the moment when it occurs inevitably. The film advance with latency to this inevitable outcome, without becoming discouraged, in order to preserve the friendly relationship such a small, precious pearl. And then all explodes, in a scene, when reality imposes its own harsh law.

“Modesty is one of the virtues of the cinema ofIra Sachs.”

The social elevator is out, but so far nothing is lost. When Jake sees, in the distance, his former accomplice and is walking around with her new group of friends, we say that the two may come out differently and that the environment where we come from is not the only data crucial to find a personal development. This fitting on the eye, upsetting, while modesty, back on the front of the stage all the minutiae of the work ofIra Sachs which, failing to be impressive, knows how to identify with precision the needs of its staging. We mentirait saying that the american film director arrives to find all the intensity of her previous film. And if flat, there should be, there is no doubt that it would be on this point. The delicacy with which he frames his characters is not a substitute for the power of the emotions raw. This does not prevent Ira Sachs to pose as a keen observer of the changes happening in our world (the place of homosexuals in the past, gentrification today). While wearing matching a sober look at the hardness of life and the evils that it can bring. If Love Is Strange ended on a bright note of hope, BROOKLYN VILLAGE leaves us with a taste of more bitter. Like what a film to another, in the image of our company, everything can change very fast.

Maxime Bedini

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