Animal: Oulaya Amamra, monstrous talent (review)

Manhunt and female rage in the heart of the Camargue: a rape and revenge with a mythological feel.

In FragileEmma Benestan dropped Oulaya Amamra in the middle of a group of guys under the burning sun of Sète. If the first fruits ofAnimal are identical – same actress, as a woman among men, enduring the heat of the south of France – the atmosphere could not be more different. Here, far from the lazy atmosphere of her first film, machismo and patriarchy are the order of the day: Nejma navigates the very masculine world of Camargue racing.

One night partying with his friends, after shouting bawdy songs and downing a bottle of vodka, it’s a blackout. His bruised body when he wakes up leads him to question what happened that night. A twist which is not really one, since the sexual nature of the trauma is quickly guessed. Perilous choice to seize the rape and revenge to point the finger at politics, but the director manages by shifting the cursor away from the usual sexy and expeditious reprisals.

Then emerges among the bulls an even more ferocious beast, the avenging woman, whose body undergoes a titanic animal metamorphosis as the trauma reveals itself to her. A cliché of recent genre cinema which inevitably gives a film an air of déjà vu but, at the same time, elevates it into a phantasmagorical western whose major asset lies in the construction of an atmosphere irrigated with Camargue folklore. And Oulaya Amamra in the middle of it all, monstrously talented.

Of Emma Benestan. With Oulaya Amamra, Damien Rebattel, Vivien Rodriguez… Duration 1h40. Released November 27, 2024