Direction: Fanny Liatard, Jérémy Trouilh
Country: France
The French filmmaking duo of Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh streamlined the narrative of Gagarine, the refreshing metaphorical drama that signals their feature directorial debut, with carefully sculpted movements and spaces. Starring Alseni Bathily and Lyna Khoudri, the film draws an observant, if uncomfortable, parallelism between a youngster abandoned by his mother and a housing estate discarded by the government.
Cité Gagarine, a red-brick housing project in Ivry-sur-Seine, was built by the French Communist Party in the early 1960s and inaugurated by the Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in 1963. Its demolition began in 2019 and lasted for 16 months, and this fictional account starts shortly before that. Like most of his neighbors, Youri (Bathily), a conscientious 16-year-old fascinated with the outer space, doesn’t stand the idea of losing his home. Considering that his mother simply abandoned him and went to live with her new boyfriend, Youri relies on his best friend Houssam (Jamil McCraven) and his crush Diana (Khoudri) to save the place and keep living.
We have a broad sense of community and solidarity between neighbors in this powerful and imaginative urban tale that cleverly undermines the sad reality of gentrification with moments of magical fantasy. The visuals match the bracing nature of the story, and like Youri, we gravitate with hope, adhering to his universe yet haunted by the desolated corridors, boarded walls, and surprisingly hidden interiors of this ghostly massive structure. Not one single scene goes on for a beat longer than it should; performances and production values are excellent.
