Born in Tbilisi in 1991, Akaki Popkhadze was raised in Russia before his family moved to Nice, in France, in 2004. He eventually graduated from the local school and embarked on a series of short films, the most recent of which received an award in Clermont-Ferrand mere months before the San Sebastián world premiere of his feature debut, In the Name of Blood. Its genre elements (not least Denis Lavant in a key supporting role) should make it an attractive prospect on the festival and arthouse circuit.
The films lays its cards on the table with the very first shot, a view of Nice that turns out to be a promotional billboard. For while the spelling may conjure certain mental images for English speakers, it is not necessarily a nice place: mere minutes into the movie, hoodlums are torturing a man for information. That information leads them to a Russian businessman, whose activities are bothering a local crime organization. But things don’t exactly go according to plan (do they ever?), and the Russian’s driver ends up dead instead.
Said driver was a Georgian immigrant, very active and respected within the community. His younger son, Tristan (Florent Hill, who also co-wrote the script with Popkhadze), is about to enter the seminary, and wishes for everything to continue in a (relatively) normal fashion. But the murder also brings about the return of the prodigal son, the firstborn Gabriel (Claire Denis regular Nicolas Duvauchelle), who’s been living in the old country for the past ten years.
He’s a pariah among his elders due to his drug-dealing past, which nonetheless comes in handy when his former partner in crime Marco (Finnegan Oldfield, who receives the French “and” credit for his colorful performance), the nephew of a local crime boss (Denis Lavant), can help him find the men responsible for the assassination. Tristan, who uses martial arts to give breathing room to his more violent instincts, wants none of it, but it’s only a matter of time before blood becomes thicker than holy water…
Divided into three chapters and an epilogue, all furnished with religiously tinged titles like “In the name of the father” and “Thou shalt not kill”, In the Name of Blood is reminiscent of early Scorsese with its faith/violence dichotomy and stylish yet frank and ultimately unflattering depiction of ethnically characterized crime. There’s even a hint of Goodfellas-inspired tracking shots to convey the supposed glamour of the gangster lifestyle, although such flourishes are a bit rougher around the edges, perhaps to better hammer home the point that this is not the ideal path.
The plot may be formulaic, but Popkhadze makes up for it with his confident direction, carefully and artfully walking the line between realism and stylization. The latter is embodied mainly by Lavant, who lives up to his status as France’s go-to oddball character actor, and Oldfield, who matches that vibe in portraying Marco’s cocaine-induced manic intensity, which goes on to infect the camera work and editing every time he’s on screen.
On the visual side, what impresses most is the choice to largely eschew the sunny postcard vistas of Nice, in favor of nighttime scenes where everyone is consistently at least half in the shadows, an unsubtle yet quietly compelling image of a double life that will eventually be irreconcilable. And while those nights are pitch black, the director’s career shows promise of brightness going forward, a vibrant new voice in non-Parisian French cinema.
Director: Akaki Popkhadze
Screenwriters: Akaki Popkhadze, Florent Hill
Cast: Nicolas Duvauchelle, Florent Hill, Ia Shugliashvili, Denis Lavant, Finnegan Oldfield, Sandor Funtek, Jean-Philippe Ricci, Arben Bajraktaraj, Genc Jakupi, Temiko Chichinadze, Dominik Ayala
Producers: Aubert Sébastien, Leslie Jacob, Alain-Gilles Viellevoye, Fabrice Delville, Elisabeth Senger-Weiss
Cinematography: Justin Vaudaux
Production design: Thibault Pinto
Music: Guillaume Ferran
Sound: Guilhem Donzel
Production companies: Adastra Films, Beside Productions, Elly Films
World sales: Urban Sales
Venue: San Sebastián International Film Festival (New Directors)
In French, Georgian, Russian, Bulgarian
108 minutes
