Rotterdam 2022 Critic’s Notebook: Third Grade, Met mes, The Dream and the Radio
It’d been nearly a decade since I’d seen a Jacques Doillon film during its premiere festival run, but Third Grade almost immediately reminded me what his work, since at least 2003’s Raja (where I first came in), feels and looks like. Restless characters roam with the sharklike compulsion of actors determined to charge every single moment; the camera slowly pans or dollies to keep everyone just within the frame’s boundaries, resting during the occasional static composition but rarely for long. Conflict is everyone’s inevitable destination, and sooner rather than later; people begin at such virulent odds that you fear for both their physical […]
by Vadim Rizov on Feb 18, 2022