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- The Order
- Leurs enfants après eux
The Order
USA/Canada/Iran, 2024 – Director Justin Kurzel Starring Jude Law, Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan, Marc Maron – Running time 114 min
The Order comes at a very particular time in American history. This film marks the first time in competition for Australian director Justin Kurzel, in his first film since Nitram, which won Caleb Landry-Jones the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2021. Kurzel travels to the United States to tell a story based on the investigative book The Silent Brotherhood, written by journalists Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt, an analysis of the ultra-right-wing movements that want to undermine American democracy. It is 1983, in the Northwest of the United States. A chain of crimes is driving the police crazy, and they cannot understand where this escalation of violence is coming from. Bank robberies, assaults on armoured carriers, dealing in counterfeit money. Sensing what is going on is a maverick from the Federal Bureau of Investigation stationed in the remote town of Coeur d’Alene, Terry Ask, who realises this wave is no accident. Behind the escalation is The Order, an organisation of neo-Nazi white supremacists that, through its criminal acts, is raising funds to organise an insurrectionist movement. At the head of this organisation is the charismatic Bob Mathews. The Order existed, and in a short period, between 1983 and 1984, it was a real threat to US democracy. The climax of their criminal activity was the murder of Alan Berg, a famous radio host whose story was told by Oliver Stone in Talk Radio. The Order based its ‘philosophy’ on the ultra-right dystopian novel The Turner Diaries, written in 1978 by William Luther Pierce, founder of another American neo-Nazi movement, the National Alliance.
Moreover, some copies of the novel were found abandoned after the storming of Capitol Hill in Washington in January 2021. On the eve of what could be the most crucial presidential election in US history, a film like The Order is undoubtedly an important document. Kurzel, an Australian, is a filmmaker who has analysed violence in its darkest forms. His debut film, The Snowtown Murders, is an account of one of the most chilling stories in recent Australian news, a remarkable film. Nitram himself narrates the events leading up to the Port Arthur massacre, where young Martin Bryant killed 35 people in 1996. Starring in The Order are Jude Law as Agent Ask and Nicholas Hoult as the creepy Bob Mathews.
Alessandro De Simone
Leurs enfants après eux
Venice 81 – Competition
world premiere
Id., France, 2024. Directed by Zoran Boukherma, Ludovic Boukherma. Starring Paul Kircher, Angélina Woreth, Sayyid El Alami, Gilles Lellouche, Ludivine Sagnier, Louis Memmi. Running time 2h 22′
With Leurs enfants après eux, in competition at Venice 81, the directors and twin brothers Ludovic and Zoran Boukherma’ confirm themselves as two promising talents for transalpine cinema,’ said Festival Artistic Director Alberto Barbera. Confirming the Festival’s interest in new films from France (in this year’s competition, there are also Jouer avec le feu by Delphine and Muriel Coulin and Trois amies by Emmanuel Mouret), which only three years ago won the Golden Lion with L’événement by Audrey Diwan, from the book by Nobel Prize-winner Annie Ernaux. Leurs enfants après eux also takes its cue from the novel by Nicolas Mathieu, winner of the Goncourt Prize 2018. It’s the summer of 1992 (the year of the filmmakers’ birth). Anthony (Paul Kircher, revealed in Winter Boy – Le lycéen) is a teenager who falls in love with Stephanie (Angélina Woreth). He steals his parent’s motorbike to see her again. The gesture, however, will not be without consequences. According to Barbera, we should expect ‘cadences of a great folk tale, swirling and exciting, where there is room for love, friendship, rivalry, disagreements with the father, small-time dealing and the lost illusions of the province‘. The film, as mentioned, is also a new step in Boukherma’s exciting journey, following their debut Willy 1er (2016, co-directed with Hugo P. Thomas and Marielle Gautier), the lycanthropic horror Teddy (2020, awarded at Sitges and Bordeaux) and the shark-comedy L’année du requin (2022).
Emanuele Bucci
