Film / Reviews
Les Combattants
Les Combattants (15)
France 2014 98 mins Dir: Thomas Cailley Starring: Adèle Haenel, Kévin Azaïs, Antoine Laurent, Brigitte Roüan
A slight yet enjoyable twist on the summer romance genre, this breezy, slowburning feature debut by French writer/director Thomas Cailley is beautifully filmed by his brother David, boasts strong performances from its two young leads and touches lightly on issues of youth unemployment and ennui, though you may find yourself wondering whether it really deserved all those film festival awards.
The cheesy alternative title, Love at First Fight, gives you some idea of what to expect. In trad romcom style, there’s a meet-cute when mild-mannered young carpenter Arnaud (Azaïs) finds himself volunteered by his sniggering buddies to take part in a beach wrestling contest with rufty-tufty tomboy Madeleine (Haenel, best known for her performance as smouldering Floriane in Celine Sciamma’s transgressive Water Lilies). After she throws him to the ground, he resorts to biting her to recover his dignity. Later, Arnaud runs into Madeleine again while he’s working with his brother on building a wooden hut in her parents’ garden. She’s sulky, sullen, acid-tongued and not a little weird and nihilistic, working out in preparation for the upcoming apocalypse that she anticipates with relish. Naturally, Arnaud is smitten. Determined to follow survivalist Madeleine to the ends of the Earth, or at least the end of the world, he signs up as a trainee paratrooper just to be alongside her. Alas, neither of them are prepared for regimented boot camp.
Adèle Haenel is magnificent as outwardly hyper-confident, capable and independent Madeleine, who thinks nothing of whisking up a raw fish in a blender and gulping down the resultant bloody gloop. Kévin Azaïs actually has the more challenging role as good-natured, puppyishly devoted Arnaud, who allows himself to be moulded by the alpha female object of his affections. A late twist initially suggests the film is going to veer off into fantasy, but actually proves quite satisfying, if perhaps slightly conservative in its implications.
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