“The characters exist as real human beings, and yet their intense inner tragedies of mythological scope shake us to the bone”

As brother and sister, Enzo and Carla are each other’s only real family when they reach the end of their teens. There are no parents in sight, and even though they seem on very good terms with the family of Enzo’s girlfriend (as illustrated in a very funny birthday cake fight scene), they nonetheless keep them in the dark about where they grew up and where their father was during that time. Their truth is buried under layers upon layers of lies, to the point where some part of it has become concealed and repressed even for them. It will take the whole duration of the film, with some brutal shocks along the way, before audience and characters alike understand and acknowledge past wounds and present traumas.

The return of their father Anthony, released from jail after serving a sentence for embezzlement even though everyone except Enzo and Carla thought he had gone overseas to work, tears the two children apart. Carla literally storms out on hearing the news, while Enzo has a whole plan laid out to start his own small resale business of in street markets, with Anthony being his employee. In his first feature film, French director Julien Gaspar-Oliveri’s extreme use of realist shooting techniques pays off in all the film’s aspirations. His handheld camera, thrown in the middle of the action and as close as can be to the characters, proves to be greatly effective in both depicting the veracity of the specific and morally gray line of work son and father go into (it comes quite close to scamming the consumer), and, mainly, in plugging directly into the emotional jolts of their toxic relationship.

On this topic, The Blow doubles down on its casting against type with Bastien Bouillon (usually some kind of ‘nice guy’ in French movies) as Anthony. By filming him in close-up and making his face fill the frame, the film creates a visual premonition of how this monster cannot be escaped from, before it is disclosed how monstruous he proves to be. Anthony is nothing short of Saturn devouring his children, and Gaspar-Oliveri’s first directing effort makes a strong impression in its ability to develop both threads in a convincing fashion. The characters exist as real human beings, and yet their intense inner tragedies of mythological scope shake us to the bone. As a result, the film reaches a series of emotional and dramatic heights as it delves deeper and deeper into the pain, until it hits its core, when the resurfacing of repressed memories and shocks comes to Enzo suddenly and unexpectedly.

After that, the film still has some distance to cover, precisely to show that the hardest part is alas still ahead for Enzo – maybe hindering the rest of his life while, very symbolically, Anthony once again vanishes from view. Enzo might be crippled forever, to the point of being unable to live among his kin because of what he was put through. As their characters are left alone for the second time, the change of tone in this final act gives the two young leads, Diego Murgia and Romane Fringeli, the space to display a wide range of acting capabilities and to profoundly move us. The fact that The Blow finds the right distance to its difficult topic, never falling into sensationalism (or on the contrary, not getting involved enough), is largely owed to them. Right until the very end, which takes the form of a shattering goodbye, as startling in its suddenness as it is beautifully shot and edited, we are with them in the eye of the storm of their conflicting feelings and open scars.