Ondes de choc – Prénom: Mathieu
Lionel Baier, Switzerland, 2018o
After a true criminal case: 17-year-old Mathieu returns home after having been brutally overwhelmed and raped during a hitchhike. Traumatised, he tries to regain a foothold in his family, school and village but has a hard time finding a way back to his former life - especially since the police reconstruction of the crime and the creation of a phantom picture of the perpetrator always brings back the hours of horror. More and more Mathieu feels the need to get to know this phantom.
Baier's contribution to Ondes de choc picks up a case from the mid-1980s and uses it to pay homage to the director's own youth, which, with its walkmans, palatable pop songs and brutal videos, seems like an awkward anticipation of the digital age with its omnipresence of mobile distraction media. Baier insists on the permanent presence of the trauma, which lies as a shadow over the everyday life of the victim of violence. All the more conclusive is Mathieu's desire to face the perpetrator eye to eye at some point - and all the more consequent is the end, which may seem abrupt, but which draws a logical conclusion from the confrontation of desire with reality.
Andreas FurlerSur un sujet hypermédiatisé, Lionel Baier garde son souffle de cinéaste viscéral jusque dans les moindres terminaisons nerveuses de la narration.
Cécile LecoultreGalleryo
