Wait and see. The motto of William the Conqueror sticks to Ariane Doublet’s film, which signs here a work on wandering. That of those who leave to never return. The film targets the ritual of the Vikings sagas. The horsain and the child could sum up the context. Few people in Normandy, Le Havre, administrative city, is far (relatively) from this torn coast in which the earth seems to plunge at sea. The film speaks of silence and listening. The learning of the other as a complementarity of life. So goes the movie. Alhassane, 17, has just arrived with a host family in Normandy. We will only see Louka, the 13 year old child. A friendship that will be tamed day by day with, by the ways, some meetings with benevolent looks. Up to the symbol of the built hut. Exchanges and looks. Itinerary, that of Alhassane’s journey from his native Guinea to Normandy. Simple words have more force than they have the geographic precision of pain. This backbone that makes the film human, citizen. There is no heartbreak, bitterness, only unanswered questions, since they are simply administrative. Alhassane’s voiceover guides his journey through the stillness of the Norman landscape. And it is not the complicity that is built to the rhythm of the perched hut facing the sea that will change Alhassane’s fate, but perhaps yes! In fact, we hope so. If the film ends or opens according to the feeling that one can have it, both are possible, on the integration of Alhassane in the process of social life through the learning of mechanics. Another question runs through the story. Never addressed and yet so present. That of resistance to the law: the crime of solidarity! Even abolished in 2018, Doubt subsists, present, in the civic sense of the action. This is the case of the association with which Ariane Doublet militates, Des Lits Solidaires. Currently, 15 young people are divided into several families in Le Havre and the surrounding area (1). The film in its modesty overshadows this link, which can only be found in the end credits. Green Boys today stuck in the maze of confinement will be released on VOD from May 6 on these platforms: UniversCiné, Orange, Canal VOD, iTunes / Apple TV, Google Play / Youtube, Filmo TV, Xbox, Arte VOD, Rakuten TV and Vitis.
The film received during the Cinéma du Réel festival, the special mention Prix by the French Institute – Louis Marcorelles