TONIGHT AND THE PEOPLE

“In an imaginary Los Angeles, a bunch of cow-boys, a group of activists,
three hippies, four teenagers and a few gangsters are waiting for a major
event that is supposed to happen tonight. Meanwhile, they talk about their
values, dreams, ideal lovers, and about how politics affect their lives.” Such
is the synopsis of Neil Beloufa’s first feature film, the lengthy and logical
follow-up to several short films, including the beautiful Kampinski (2007).
But it should be added that this heterogeneous and unbelievable reunion is
caught in a rigorously ordered net. With sitcom-like flat lights, deliberately
artificial settings, recorded depthless voices uttering edited dialogues from
previous interviews, stereotyped cast and mechanical acting, nothing strays
out of line, life has deserted the place, leaving physical shells to their fate
as puppets. Although the project lies somewhere between a sociological
survey (it crudely reports the emptiness of truisms actually recorded) and a
study of imaginary representations (it piles up clichés of social positions
dictated by and reproduced on TV), the outcome of this detailed work
is something altogether different. Realism turns into fancy. Because the
apocalypse all the characters are waiting for has already happened, and we
are actually in Hell. (JPR)