An ecological fable, between satire and poetry
From Beauvais airport to the La Défense district, a man in a suit and tie crosses on foot, and without a carbon footprint, the countryside and the suburbs. He drags a suitcase on wheels, handcuffed to his wrist, determined to accomplish a mysterious mission. Animal Totem (in theaters Wednesday) is the first film that Benoît Delépine directs without his accomplice GrolandGustave Kervern. To play his enigmatic Darius, he chose Samir Guesmi, whom he met in 2021 during the Angoulême Francophone Film Festival, detecting in him a mixture of James Bond and Monsieur Hulot.
Its silhouette elegantly crosses the wandering captured in panoramic vision. In addition to Jean-Charles Valladont as an archery instructor, he meets a succession of crazy characters, like so many sketches that balance between absurd humor, corrosive remarks and social criticism. But, with the animal gaze as a common thread, crossing that of a deer, a fox, a pigeon or a simple slug, the film unfolds its poetry and the spectator can only get involved in this ecological and anti-capitalist fable, before the dramatic twist and a final biting and jubilant act.
