athena movie review in tamil

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ஓடிடி உலா: அனுராக் காஷ்யப் கொண்டாடும் ‘அதினா’

• எஸ்.எஸ்.லெனின்
• 24 Sep, 2022 10:18 PM

’ஆண்டின் ஆகச்சிறந்த திரைப்படங்களில் ஒன்று’ என்று அண்மையில் வெளியான ‘அதினா’ பிரெஞ்சு திரைப்படம் குறித்து பிரபல பாலிவுட் இயக்குநர் அனுராக் காஷ்யப் விதந்தோதி இருக்கிறார். அவரை பின்பற்றி ஓடிடி ரசிகர்கள் பலரும் அதினாவை ரசித்தும் கொண்டாடியும் வருகிறார்கள். அப்படியென்ன இருக்கிறது ‘அதினா’வில்?

பரவும் இனவெறியால் வஞ்சிக்கப்படுவதாக பிரான்ஸை சேர்ந்த சிறுபான்மை கிளர்ச்சியாளர்கள் கலவரத்தில் இறங்குவதும், அதன் பின்னணியிலான அதிகாரத்தின் சதிராட்டம் மற்றும் பாதிக்கப்பட்ட குடும்பத்தினரின் பாசப் போராட்டமுமே ‘அதினா’ திரைப்படம்.

பாரிஸ் மாநகரின் புறநகர் பிராந்தியங்களில் ஒன்று அதினா. புகலிடம் தேடி பிரான்சில் குடியேறியவர்கள் இதனை கட்டமைத்திருக்கிறார்கள். அவர்களில் அல்ஜீரிய பின்புலத்தை சேர்ந்த இஸ்லாமிய குடும்பம் ஒன்றுக்கு நேரும் பெருந்துயர் தேசத்தின் கலவர முகமாக மாறுகிறது. 4 சகோதரர்களை உள்ளடக்கிய அந்த குடும்பத்தில் கடைக்குட்டியான ’இதிர்’ என்ற 13 வயது சிறுவன் போலீஸார் சிலரால் அடித்துக் கொல்லப்படுகிறான். இந்த சம்பவம் குறித்த மர்ம வீடியோ சமூக ஊடகங்களில் வைரலாக, தொடரும் இனவெறியை கண்டிக்கும் போராட்டங்கள் ஆங்காங்கே வெடிக்கின்றன. இதிரின் அண்ணனாக இருபதுகளில் இருக்கும் ‘கரிம்’ கிளர்ச்சியாளர்களுக்கு தளபதியாகிறான். தம்பிக்கு இழைக்கப்பட்ட கொடூரத்துக்கு நியாயம் கோரி, காவல்துறைக்கு எதிரான கலவரங்களை அரங்கேற்றுகிறான்.

இதிர், கரிம் இருவருக்கும் அண்ணனான அப்தெல் ஒரு ராணுவ வீரன். முதிர்ச்சியுற்ற அப்தெல், காவல்துறை மீதும் அதன் விசாரணையின் மீதும் நம்பிக்கை இழக்காதிருக்கிறான். பழிக்குப்பழி என ஆத்திரம் கொண்டு அலையும் தம்பி கரிமை சமாதானப்படுத்த விழைகிறான். இந்த மூவருக்கும் ஒருவகையில் மூத்தவனான மொக்தர் ஒரு சந்தர்ப்பவாதி. செத்துப்போன தம்பி இதிர் குறித்த கவலைகள் அற்றவன், கரிமின் கிளர்ச்சியால் தனது போதைப்பொருள் வணிகம் பாதிப்புக்குள்ளாவதாக நோகிறான். இப்படி சுபாவம் மற்றும் நம்பிக்கையால் வேறுபட்டிருக்கும் சகோதரர்கள் இடையிலான மோதலும், கிளர்ச்சியாளர்கள் - காவல்துறையினர் இடையே வெடிக்கும் கலவரமுமே ‘அதினா’ கதையின் அடித்தளம்.

இத்தனை சம்பவங்களும் அவற்றை இணைத்து இதர மர்மங்களை விடுவிக்கும் கதையும் இந்த விவரணைகள் ஏதுமின்றி அவற்றின் போக்கில் ஆங்காங்கே மடல் விரிக்கின்றன. கண்ணிகளை முடிச்சிட்டு நாமாக கதைப்போக்கின் அடிநாதத்தை அடையாளம் கண்டாக வேண்டும். அப்படியான கதையின் ஆரம்பமே காவல்துறைக்கு எதிரான கலவரத்தில் தொடங்குகிறது. காவல் நிலையம் ஒன்றை தாக்கி அங்குள்ள ஆயுதங்களை கிளர்ச்சியாளர்கள் கொள்ளையடிக்கின்றனர்.

சுமார் 11 நிமிடங்களுக்கு ஒரே ஷாட்டில் விரியும் இந்த காட்சியின் வேகம் பார்வையாளர்களை நிமிர்ந்து அமரச் செய்கிறது. அதன் பின்னர் படம் முடியும் வரை அந்த விறுவிறுப்பை கைநழுவாது பாவிக்கிறார்கள். இயக்குநர் ரோமைன் கவ்ராஸ் படைப்புகளில் அதிகம் சிலாகிக்கப்படும் வன்முறை மற்றும் பின்னணி இசை, ‘அதினா’ திரைப்படத்திலும் அதகளம் செய்திருக்கிறது. அடுத்த ஆஸ்கர் விருதுக்கு ரோமைன் கவ்ராஸ் பெயரை அதிகளவு ரசிகர்கள் பரிந்துரைக்கவும் ‘அதினா’ காரணமாகி இருக்கிறது.

படம் முழுக்க கேமரா ஓரிடத்தில் நிற்காது அலைபாய்ந்து கொண்டே இருக்கிறது. கதாபாத்திரங்களின் ஓட்டம், தாவல், பதுங்கல் என அனைத்திலும் கேமராவும் பங்கெடுக்கிறது. அவற்றை நுட்பமாக பதிவு செய்யும் சிங்கிள் ஷாட்டுகள் கலவர பூமியின் ஓய்வற்ற தன்மையையும், பதட்டத்தையும் சதா பார்வையாளருக்கு கடத்தவும் முயற்சிக்கின்றன. இனவெறிக்கு எதிராக அவ்வப்போது பற்றிக்கொள்ளும் சீற்றம், வலுக்கும் வலதுசாரிகளின் போக்கு, சிறுபான்மையினரின் நமுத்துப்போகும் நம்பிக்கைகள், அதன் காரணமாக இலக்கின்றி வெடிக்கும் அவர்களின் போராட்டம், அவர்களை நுட்பமாக சீண்டும் அரசியல் மற்றும் அதிகார பீடங்கள்... உள்ளிட்டவை பிரான்சுக்கு அப்பாலும் அடையாளம் காணக் கிடைப்பவை.

இனவெறிக்கு எதிராக கிளர்ந்தெழும் மக்களின் போராட்டத்தையும் அவர்கள் மீதான நடைமுறைக்கு அப்பாற்பட்ட கரிசனமோ, பச்சாதாபமோ இன்றி பதிவு செய்ததன் வாயிலாகவும் ஒரு படைப்புக்கான நியாயத்தை கண்டடைய முயல்கிறார்கள். பூச்செடிகளை அலங்கரிக்கும் வெடிகுண்டு விற்பனன், தான் கொண்ட நிலையிலிருந்து அடியோடு மாறும் பிரதான பாத்திரம், கிளர்ச்சியாளர்கள் மீது சட்டத்துக்கு அப்பாற்பட்டு தாக்க துணியாத காவல்துறை உள்ளிட்ட பல சுவாரசிய அம்சங்களும் கதையின் போக்கில் தட்டுப்படுகின்றன. முக்கியமாய் உக்ரைனில் ரஷ்ய கவச வாகனங்களை தாக்கும் ’மாலடாஃப் காக்டெய்ல்ஸ்’(Molotov cocktails) எனப்படும் நம்மூர் பெட்ரோல் குண்டுக்கு நிகரான சித்தரிப்புக்கும் ‘அதினா’வில் அதிக இடம் தந்திருக்கிறார்கள்.

கொல்லப்பட்ட தம்பிக்காக 3 அண்ணன்களும் தத்தம் புரிதல், சுபாவம், நம்பிக்கை மற்றும் முதிர்ச்சிக்கு ஏற்ப எதிர்வினையாற்றுகிறார்கள். தம்பியின் இழப்பைத் தாங்க முடியாத கரிம், பெரும் கலவரத்துக்கு காரணமாகிறான். அவனுக்கு எதிராக காவல்துறையும் பின்னே ராணுவமும் களமிறங்கும்போது, கலவர முகம் நாடெங்கிலும் பரவியிருக்கிறது. காவல்துறையின் விசாரணை மீது நம்பிக்கை வைத்திருக்கும் அப்தெல், தம்பியை சமாதானப்படுத்த முயல்வதுடன் பாதிக்கப்படும் அப்பாவிகளை காப்பாற்றவும் முயல்கிறான்.

இவர்களில் ஒவ்வொருவர் பார்வையிலிருந்தும் விரியும் காட்சிகளும், முன்வைக்கப்படும் நியாயங்களும் அடுத்தடுத்து தடம்புரள்கின்றன. எதிர்பாரா சம்பவங்களும் அவை விடுவிக்கும் புதிர்களுமாக திரைப்படம் முடியும்போது, கதை கைக்கொண்டிருந்த ஓய்வற்ற போக்கு பார்வையாளரையும் பீடித்துக்கொள்கிறது. அவற்றோடு விசித்திரமான எதிர்மறை போக்கினையும் படம் நெருக்கமாக அணுகுகிறது. சினிமாக்களில் அரிதான இந்த பாணி, கதையாக அல்லாது நம்மை அடிக்கடி அச்சுறுத்தும் நிதர்சனத்தை முகத்தில் அறைகிறது. விவாதங்களை கிளப்பியிருக்கும் சமரசமற்ற இந்த அணுகுமுறையும் ‘அதினா’வின் சிறப்புக்கு காரணமாகி இருக்கிறது.

பாலியல் காட்சிகள் இல்லாத ‘அதினா’ அதன் அதிகப்படி வன்முறை சித்தரிப்புகளால் பெரியவர்களுக்கு மட்டுமான திரைப்படமாக இந்தியாவில் பரிந்துரைக்கப்பட்டிருக்கிறது. ஒன்றரை மணி நேரத்தில் விரைந்து முடியும் ‘அதினா’ அனுபவம் அனுராக் காஷ்யபின் பரிந்துரைக்கு கட்டியம் சொல்கிறது. தமிழ் டப்பிங்கிலும் காண நெட்ஃபிளிக்ஸ் வழி செய்திருக்கிறது.

Athena movie review: One of the best films of 2022, it’s an uncompromising action masterpiece

Athena movie review: director romain gavras' astounding new netflix film combines potent political themes with some of the most visceral action filmmaking you'll ever see..

Athena is a magic trick. There’s no other way to describe it. For 90 minutes, it grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go. It makes you submit yourself to being hurled violently from one scene to the next, keenly aware the entire time that you’re strapped to a vehicle of chaos, headed towards the edge of a cliff. It’s a Greek tragedy, a Biblical drama about brotherhood, and the most flashily directed action film since Mad Max: Fury Road.

Such is the level of technical skill on display here that even the Corridor Crew will be bamboozled by how director Romain Gavras — son of the legendary Costa-Gavras — managed to pull off some of the sequences.

Set across one day and night in a Paris council estate — a banlieue, if you will — the film traces the immediate aftermath of a child’s death at the hands of the police. The boy’s adult brothers find themselves on either side of the ideological divide. Abdel, the elder one, is a war hero. But in his younger brother Karim’s eyes, he’s nothing but a traitor. Karim has become something of a messiah figure amid the protests that have erupted across France in retaliation for his brother’s death. Abdel should’ve been the one who died, he says in a tense confrontation scene, unable to clamp down on his contempt for men in uniform.

The film begins with the most stunning opening sequence this side of Pieces of a Woman. Karim watches silently as Abdel delivers a press conference assuring the media and the public that the authorities are doing everything in their power to determine who killed the boy — their brother — and bring them to justice. Karim isn’t buying a single word. “Vive la révolution,” his eyes scream, as he silently lights a Molotov cocktail and hurls it at the stage, lighting the fuse for the absolute anarchy to follow.

As the protestors storm the police station and proceed to wreak havoc, the camera follows Karim from hallway to hallway, through a sea of angry men, as he finally makes his way out, armed with an arsenal of the cops’ weapons that he intends on using against them. Gavras doesn’t cut. He tracks Karim inside a getaway van, pans out to include other fleeing protesters performing wheelies on their dirt bikes, and follows the convoy back to the banlieue. It’s expertly choreographed chaos that somehow manages to squeeze in important character moments, pivotal plot beats, and crucial context.

When Gavras finally cuts, after more than 10 minutes of the most immersive action filmmaking you’re likely to see this year, you glance at the Netflix logo and ask yourself two questions: man, how incredible would this have been on the big screen, and how in the world is Gavras going to sustain this level of intensity for 80 more minutes?

As it turns out, he can. Gavras does this by stitching the film together with around half-a-dozen more sequences on par with those opening 10 minutes. Unlike director Ali Abbas Zafar, whose recent film Jogi shares several thematic overlaps with this one, Gavras doesn’t allow himself to be distracted. There are no unnecessary flashbacks, no pointless diversions. And yet, the family drama is potent, more potent than anything in Jogi.

Athena is such an immersive experience that you often forget that you’re even watching a film at all, despite the strikingly cinematic visuals. Gavras and his cinematographer — the film’s MVP Matias Boucard — conjure images that will burn themselves in your mind’s eye. Particularly haunting is the sight of a lone man, tending to his garden while violence erupts around him; and the film’s final shot, which I won’t spoil here.

Co-written by Gavras, Elias Belkeddar and the filmmaker Ladj Ly (whose 2019 film Les Misérables tread similar thematic ground) Athena functions almost like the third act of a larger story; a cautionary tale about inevitable anarchy that begins after all other options have been exhausted. We don’t need to know the details of the events that led us to this moment, because the film is confident that its audience will empathise immediately. Athena couldn’t care less about those who need convincing.

But this is also where the film begins to push the boundaries of good taste. At times, it’s as if Gavras’ film isn’t merely resigning to violence, but actively encouraging it. My main complaint about Jogi was that it was too timid a film to be given the privilege to tackle such sensitive themes as the oppression of minorities and the banality of evil. Athena is quite the opposite. It’s an uncompromising and often uncomfortable look at police brutality and racial segregation. The take-no-prisoners attitude of Gavras’ filmmaking certainly isn’t going to win him any new friends, although it could (and should) win him an Academy Award nomination.

Athena Director – Romain Gavras Cast – Dali Benssalah, Sami Slimane, Anthony Bajon, Ouassini Embarek, Alexis Maneti Rating – 4.5/5

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Rohan Naahar is an assistant editor at Indian Express online. He covers pop-culture across formats and mediums. He is a 'Rotten Tomatoes-approved' critic and a member of the Film Critics Guild of India. He previously worked with the Hindustan Times, where he wrote hundreds of film and television reviews, produced videos, and interviewed the biggest names in Indian and international cinema. At the Express, he writes a column titled Post Credits Scene, and has hosted a podcast called Movie Police. You can find him on X at @RohanNaahar, and write to him at [email protected]. He is also on LinkedIn and Instagram. ... Read More

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Hours after the tragic death of their youngest brother in unexplained circumstances, three siblings have their lives thrown into chaos. Hours after the tragic death of their youngest brother in unexplained circumstances, three siblings have their lives thrown into chaos. Hours after the tragic death of their youngest brother in unexplained circumstances, three siblings have their lives thrown into chaos.

• Romain Gavras
• Elias Belkeddar
• Dali Benssalah
• Sami Slimane
• Anthony Bajon
• 112 User reviews
• 89 Critic reviews
• 73 Metascore
• 3 wins & 8 nominations

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• (as Yassine Bouzrou)

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• Trivia The first scene was the last one to shoot, due to the complexity needed to pull off the entire sequence. It is comprised of 7 different shots stitched together in post to give the idea of an unbroken 10-minute take.
• Connections Featured in Making Athena (2022)

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• Dec 3, 2022
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• September 23, 2022 (United States)
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• Place du Parc aux Lièvres, Évry-Courcouronnes, Essonne, France (Athena)
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You aren’t likely to see a more rightfully angry film this year than “Athena,” a non-stop opus examining the racism, inequality, and police violence that wreak havoc on France’s banlieue communities of color. That palpable fury rages through the film’s opening sequence, one that director Romain Gavras shoots in a pronounced single take that emphasizes its impressive craftsmanship; perhaps a little too loudly.

But mostly for good reason, as this sequence is simply one of the most challenging single takes we’ve seen in cinema recently, even when the technique is more accessible to filmmakers of all stripes these days (and emerged in mainstream TV discussions as of late, thanks to that crazy one-shot episode seven of the wildly popular “ The Bear ”). So let’s break it down, shall we? First, there’s the murmur of the news reports in the background, helping us pick up on the fact that police violence has been on the rise. Then we see the defiant face of Abdel ( Dali Benssalah ), a French soldier freshly returned from serving in Mali, and brother of the 13-year-old Idir who had just fallen victim to one such senseless instance of cop killing. There is undeniable grief in Abdel’s stance, and he does want justice. But the military officer keeps it cool all the same, inviting his community surrounding a police station to follow his example.

The camera doesn’t interrupt the movement and finds in the crowd Abdel’s brother Karim ( Sami Slimane , a searing presence in his screen debut). His eyes burning with wrath, and his posture impatient, he lights up and throws a Molotov cocktail towards the door, starting a well-planned riot amid a rampaging crowd. Through that—and an overwhelming action sequence of smoke-filled chaos that follows—Karim and the protesters take control of the location as well as a hefty supply of guns, with cinematographer Matias Boucard ’s unflinching and agile camera following them to their housing project, Athena: a place these revolutionaries proudly revere above all else, standing tall on its edges.

Truth be told, Surkin’s pulsating score that spreads itself over this sequence (and many other similarly impressive ones thereafter) is big and exhausting. The dynamic between the music and visuals is one that brings to mind Hans Zimmer ’s occasional overindulgence when composing for Christopher Nolan —competing against the magnitude of the filmmaker’s already grand images, instead of amplifying them. But apart from that, “Athena”—a Greek tragedy constructed by the son of Costa-Gavras with recognizable hints of “Z”—immensely satisfies as a fast-moving political thriller and urban drama that feels genuinely cinematic, with technical finesse to spare.

Still, the film that essentially follows the late Idir’s three disparate brothers is more emotionally gripping in its rare moments that focus on small and quiet gestures and undercurrents. A realistically rendered (and recited) Islamic funeral prayer comes to mind, one that simmers with pain and familial grudges. Elsewhere, the third brother, Moktar ( Ouassini Embarek ), gives “Athena” one of its more challenging and narratively tricky storylines, being the sibling who’s found a way to line his pockets in the midst of all the injustice his people are subjected to. Running a drug operation out of Athena, Moktar’s primary interest happens to be his own survival and he’s not afraid to go to dubious lengths for it.

The astute and immersive script—written by Gavras, Elias Belkeddar , and Ladj Ly of the similarly themed “ Les Misérables ”—sees the brothers as representative pillars of the different ways immigrants and marginalized communities take on systems of power that are not designed for them to succeed. Abdel is something closer to a both-sides-ist, believing that there could be a harmonious way for the opposing ends to come together. Moktar is the opportunist, one who can look at a broken whole, see its cracks and muscle his way into those fault lines for financial gain and clout. Karim, on the other hand, is a young and scorching all-or-nothing radical, one who believes the system can’t be fair for anyone until it’s made to collapse and radically rebuilt.

While some of these struggles are specific to the French communities the film follows, they are also universal, with recent echoes deeply familiar here in the US. And despite a morally ambiguous parting note, “Athena” incisively engages with these battles despite a brassy style that at times overpowers them.

On Netflix today.

Tomris Laffly

Tomris Laffly is a freelance film writer and critic based in New York. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC), she regularly contributes to  RogerEbert.com , Variety and Time Out New York, with bylines in Filmmaker Magazine, Film Journal International, Vulture, The Playlist and The Wrap, among other outlets.

• Dali Benssalah as Abdel
• Anthony Bajon as Jérôme
• Alexis Manenti as Sébastien
• Ouassini Embarek as Mokhtar
• Sami Slimane as Karim
• Benjamin Weill
• Elias Belkeddar
• Romain Gavras

Cinematographer

• Matias Boucard

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Netflix’s Athena is the most thrilling movie of the year, even if the streamer doesn’t care if you see it

This article was published more than 2 years ago. Some information may no longer be current.

Hours after the tragic death of their youngest brother in unexplained circumstances, three siblings have their lives thrown into chaos in Athena. Photo Credit: Kourtrjameuf Kourtrajme/Netflix

• Directed by Romain Gavras
• Written by Romain Gavras, Elias Belkeddar and Ladj Ly
• Starring Dali Benssalah, Sami Slimane and Ouassini Embarek
• Classification R; 97 minutes
• Now streaming on Netflix

Critic’s Pick

Between now and the end of the year, Netflix will release 40 or so original movies – films both developed by the streamer from the ground up, and titles that it acquired on the festival or market circuit. You will probably hear about, and maybe even watch, five of them.

Certainly, you’ll be exposed to the big, expensive prestige titles, like Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery and White Noise , which Netflix hopes will turn nonsubscribers into loyal customers, or at least retain audiences who were thinking about bolting.

Which means that, unless your job is actually tracking the ins and outs of the streaming landscape, you will have never heard about the many other “ Netflix Originals” that arrive on the service and then disappear into the algorithmic ether. Movies such as Athena , which happens to be one of the more thrilling, innovative and genuinely exciting films of the year.

Directed by French music-video veteran Romain Gavras (collaborator of Kanye West and M.I.A., and son of legendary political filmmaker Costa-Gavras), Athena is a Greek tragedy by way of cultural polemic, wrapped in the guise of a pulse-pounding war movie. It is at times brash and thick-headed in its characters and politics, but it is engineered with such an electric ferocity – a beautiful marriage of high-performance technical expertise and gonzo aesthetic imagination – that it cannot help but knock you out.

Opening with an unbroken 11-minute action sequence that moves from an assault on a police station to a highway chase to a full-scale riot inside the fictional French banlieue (housing project) of the title, Athena moves like a bullet, and is just as ruthless.

The story pieces itself together quickly, violently and chaotically. It starts with decorated military man Abdel (Dali Benssalah) revealing during a news conference that his 13-year-old brother Idir has been pronounced dead after a brutal encounter with police on the Athena grounds. Abdel is solemn but simmering with rage, standing next to a nameless official who demands that local officers stop closing ranks and instead reveal who the rogue cops might be, before the situation gets out of hand.

Seconds later, that situation does just that. In the crowd is Abdel’s younger brother, the furious but frighteningly calm Karim (Sami Slimane), who tosses a Molotov cocktail into the crowd, igniting a fiery standoff between Athena’s marginalized youth, the French authorities, and all manner of characters caught in-between. These include a nervous cop (Anthony Bajon) who is among hundreds of others ordered to storm the complex; a soft-spoken terrorist (Alexis Manenti) enlisted to quickly educate the housing block’s eager new insurrectionists; and Abdel and Karim’s eldest brother, the hotheaded drug dealer Moktar (Ouassini Embarek), who seems to only want to save his illicit business from an inevitable police raid.

Sami Slimane and Dali Benssalah in Athena. Photo Credit: Kourtrjameuf Kourtrajme/Netflix

The film’s script, co-written by Gavras, Elias Belkeddar and Ladj Ly – the latter of whom tackled similar subject matter with a gentler touch in 2019′s Les Miserables – has more issues than Oedipus. The trio of writers cannot seem to transition from one scene to the next without having characters either yell at each other or employ bursts of sudden violence, or both. And the screenwriters seem equally unprepared to imagine what it must be like for anyone who is not a brooding male of brawl-ready age to live inside Athena’s walls – this is strictly a young and angry man’s world, with the four women onscreen reduced to the roles of a) weeping mother, b) abused girlfriend, c) nameless gang member, and c) angry sister/cousin/whatever.

There is also an unfortunate, embarrassing coda that reduces what was the story’s nervy, admirable accent of ambiguity regarding Idir’s death to an eye-roll of a twist. What‘s worse: The flip nearly dissolves the very real societal tensions tearing France apart, which Gavras and company weaponize as their thematic base. If Athena is a call to action, then its final moments turn a cri de cœur into a conspiracy-ridden rant.

But shoving these not-insignificant concerns aside – because, when you are watching Gavras’s film speed by, it is so very easy to turn off the “wait, what …?” part of your brain – Athena stands as a towering testament to the art of immersive, eye-rearranging cinema.

The takes are often long, uninterrupted marvels, stitched together with the kind of digital cinema trickery that can so easily be annoying, but here feels seamless, organic and purely matched with the propulsive storytelling. There is a seeming cast of thousands who are perfectly choreographed to provide maximum sensory overload in every margin of every frame. And with a pounding score by French electronic music producer Surkin – a sonic blast that answers the question of what would happen if Justice and Hans Zimmer teamed up while stuck in a studio that was on fire – the film simply never lets its energies dip for a second.

In a way, Gavras has made the perfect anti-Netflix film – giant, intimidating, requiring your rapt attention – even though he knew exactly under which depressing circumstances his work would ultimately be seen.

In a recent interview with New York Magazine, Gavras said that Athena needed to kick off with a magnificent, intricate opening sequence because “even when I watch a Netflix film, if it’s not interesting in the first five minutes, I’m going to go away.” Partly shooting with a digital IMAX camera the size of a fridge, Gavras and his dedicated team – including cinematographer Matias Boucard and editor Benjamin Weill – have created something so impressively monstrous, so larger than life, that only the biggest of big screens can possibly optimize its maximalist glory.

And the director’s reward? A single one-week theatrical run at Netflix’s Paris Theatre in New York, and almost zero promotional efforts for its streaming release.

While I had heard about Athena ’s warm reception at the Venice Film Festival last month, I only found out that the film became available to stream worldwide this past week, and only thanks to a tweet from Gavras himself that happened to get RT’d into my feed. For the titles that Netflix genuinely wants to promote, I at least get a press notice with a trailer, poster, release details, etc. Here, not even a whisper of an e-mail. Curiously, the film is also nowhere to be found on my Netflix home page. Even manually searching the title, you need to type “Ath” before Athena will pop up in the first row of matching results.

I did, however, receive an e-mail from Netflix the other day informing me that new episodes of Bling Empire Season 3 were available to watch. Now that’s a tragedy of epic proportions.

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