Enzo on Canal Plus: a story of work and desire (review)
Imagined by Laurent Cantet and produced by his lifelong accomplice Robin Campillo after his death, a skin-deep initiatory story that reveals a talent to follow: Eloy Pohu.
Enzo, the posthumous film by Laurent Canter directed by Robin Campillo, is broadcast this Wednesday evening on Canal Plus cinema and visible in streaming on MyCanal. A drama with Eloy Pohu, Pierfrancesco Favino and Elodie Bouchez not to be missed.
They met at Idhec in the early 1980s. And for 40 years, their complicity – friendly as well as professional – was cloudless. Robin Campillothe director of 120 Beats Per Minute (Grand Prix at Cannes in 2017) co-wrote or edited (and sometimes both) all of the films in Laurent Cantetincluding his 2008 Palme d’Or, Entre les Murs. So when Cantet learned he had incurable cancer and wanted to embark on a final project, Enzo, he spontaneously asked his friend to accompany him. Including on set on days when he is not in good condition.
Campillo obviously agreed. But after finding some of the main performers (including the revelation Eloy Pohu in the title role), Laurent Cantet died on April 25, 2024. Before the first clap. And Robin Campillo therefore directed this posthumous film alone, which opened the 2025 Filmmakers’ Fortnight. A film of emancipation centered on a 16-year-old teenager (Eloy Pohu, an exceptional revelation), an apprentice mason in La Ciotat, his relationships with his family, his boss and his colleagues, and more particularly one of them of Ukrainian origin for whom he experiences unprecedented distress.
A film of infinite delicacy and power, wonderfully blending the worlds of the two filmmakers both in the way of filming bodies and talking about the world of work or setting the story in the turbulent times we are going through (the war in Ukraine, etc.). Until the final sublime and poignant scene. To life, to death!
By Laurent Cantet and Robin Campillo. With Eloy Pohu, Pierfrancesco Favino, Elodie Bouchez… Duration: 1h42.
