The boy: an exciting (critical) track
A film combining documentary and fiction around a collection of family photos discovered in a flea market. A success.
It is a film that arises by chance from the discovery in a flea market in a series of photos of the same family. And the curiosity of Zabou Breitman and Florent Vassault (director of two documentaries on the death penalty, Honk! And Lindy Lou, juror n ° 2and editor appointed to César for The heyday) To know more about them and more precisely about this boy who immediately hits the director’s eye. Who is it? Is it still of this world? What was his life between the moment these shots were taken and today? This is the play of tracks that will offer The boy According to an original principle combining documentary and fiction.
The documentary for the investigation by Florent Vassault on the track of the said boy. The fiction through which Zabou Breitman tries to imagine his career by calling on actors (including François Berléand and Isabelle Nanty). And if this mixture of genres may seem artificial at the start, he quickly finds his cruising speed, his way of making Docu and Fiction dialogue, without looking for a perfect balance (the investigation, in fact more exciting, gradually takes the step on the rest) but by making them feed each other, as echoing the Souchon song, Lann-Bihoué’s bagad And her famous “you didn’t see her like that your life”.
Plus Vassault advances (without keeping up to date his co-director, the departure deal, so that she can go after her inspiration, without being parasitized by reality), more The boy is hectic and the more this personal story tends to the universal. A real curiosity.
Of Zabou Breitman and Florent Vassault. With Isabelle Nanty, François Berléand, Damien Sobieraff … Duration 1h37. Released March 26, 2025
