Un monde sans bêtes

Théo is 14 years old and dreams of becoming a ‘manadier’ (having a herd of bulls and cows). Learning under the supervision of Mickaël, he spends the summer on a bull farm. This film bathed in Southern light is the first co-directed film by Emma Benestan and Adrien Lecouturier, who continue to explorer the territory of adolescence. The result of an encounter with Théo during an artist’s residence in a local school, Facing the Beast draws the delicate portrait of a teenager who is as withdrawn as he is enthusiastic, and, on the threshold of adulthood, is facing his fears in the shadow of a not so reassuring paternal figure. With a certain mastery and at the right distance, the film swings between the world of childhood and that of adults: learning a trade, proving one’s virility, being a man—at the risk of being gored. In a beautiful sequence in dusky hues, the childish games of cat and mouse are transformed in the bullring into a harsher combat, a training session that starts to look like a rite of passage. At the end of the summer, who knows, perhaps the life-saving dodge will not be the one we thought.
(Céline Guénot)