Dir: Akihito Hata | Cast: Damien Bonnard, Samir Guesmi, Mouna Soualem, Tudor-Aaron Istodor, Ahmed Abdel-Laoui, Denis Eyriey Issaka Sawadogo, Mounir Margoum, Zacharia Mezouar | France Sci-fi Thriller 91’
The impact of the ongoing UK rail project known as HS2 comes to mind in Akihito Hata’s feature debut, a psychological thriller about an ordinary man compelled to put his own interests above others on a mammoth construction site.
The man’s desire to succeed risks derailing his career and even his marriage. Damien Bonnard is well cast as the ambitious construction worker involved on one of these ultra modern building projects: HS2 employs around 30,000. To make the mood even darker the action mostly unfolds at night where Damien presumably earns a bonus for out-of-hours work.
Struggling to maintain a decent lifestyle Damien and his wife are constantly striving, and even competing with each other, to improve their incomes at the expense of their day-to-day relationship, and this naturally puts pressure on their marriage. More stress is piled on when a worker disappears from the building site and Damien is eventually forced to justify his position even though suspicion falls on management covering up an accident. But then another worker disappears creating an atmosphere of hostile mistrust.
All this fear and anxiety becomes a metaphor for a generalised unease that appears to permeate from the workplace itself – aka bad building syndrome – the noise, emotional instability and suspicion coupled with frayed tempers and constant economic pressure make this a relevant and timely modern day B movie screening at Venice Film Festival, in the Horizons strand. @MeredithTaylor
VENICE FILM FESTIVAL | HORIZONS 2025