The Lord’s BMW

This enigmatic title might be beautiful, but it is above all congruent with what it is
about. The wavering between boasting and God. Between the traffic of stolen cars
and the direct company of angels: it is all a matter of speed, revelation, bedazzlement,
headlights or miraculous vision. A matter of men bigger than life. But first
of all, where are we? In the North of France, with Fred Dorkel, his family and friends,
all of them from a community of “travelling people”, as they say. But don’t expect
guitars, fake compassion, or even less so a mediocre naturalism vaguely spiced up
with Gipsy folklore. Where are we? In pure fiction, science-fiction, western, you name
it. In something that is deeply breathing and mildly hallucinating.
Even if Jean-Charles Hue isn’t a beginner and knows his characters-actors very well
for having filmed them and mixed with them for a long time, it is the first time he ever
devised in minute detail such an autonomous, obvious machine. Each scene invents
its own necessity and delirium, everybody’s there for the show; even a big white
dog plays its part, bulky and quiet, like an immaculate icon.
When there is no choice but to accept that everywhere scenarios are running out
of steam and so are we, it is delightful to find back the revived innocence of cinema,
thanks to people who couldn’t care less. (JPR)