The Failure of 'Athena'

By Yaa Mensah-King

Athena is a 2022 film directed by French filmmaker Romain Gavras known for The World Is Yours and the music video for “No Church in the Wild”. The film is set in a fictitious, predominantly Muslim Parisian banlieue that is under siege by policemen following civil unrest in the wake of the beating and subsequent death of a 13-year-old boy at the hands of police officers. The stark differences between the victim’s three older brothers are the film's focus in addition to their relationships with law enforcement and the community. The premise of the film is interesting enough but its execution leaves much to be desired and much of this can be attributed to the manifesto-like form Gavras decides to use.

The manifesto is an incendiary form. The status quo is in a state of deep slumber and the manifesto is a bullhorn blaring right by the ear. The aim is to jolt the reader from passivity and share the same hunger for change and destruction of the status quo as the author. In Athena, this jolt comes in the form of a Molotov cocktail thrown in the middle of a press conference. Abdel, the brother who is a revered lieutenant, encourages people to remain calm and protest peacefully while the investigation into the officers responsible for the death of young Idir is still ongoing. Karim, Abdel’s younger brother, is the one who launches the Molotov cocktail which causes the police station to erupt into chaos. Karim and several other young residents of Athena manage to steal some weapons and a police van. Upon their return to Athena, they position themselves in a way that allows them to defend and attack any intruders and it becomes apparent that this is war. The residents of Athena who had not been directly involved with the planning of disruptive action are now forced to make a choice. Do they stay and fight or do they leave? The manifesto forces these decisive actions.

While Karim is intent on fighting, Abdel leans toward helping people evacuate. Adding another layer of complexity, Moktar, the third brother, is a self-serving drug dealer who is primarily concerned with his business. At times he aids Karim’s cause and at others, it is Abdel who he helps but it is all done reluctantly and only when he believes he has no other option to preserve his operations. The brothers’ differences quickly turn them against each other. Karim believes Abdel is sympathetic to the forces that oppress the residents of Athena and are responsible for the death of Idir and begins to view him in an antagonistic light. One of Moktar’s contacts kills Karim and as a result Abdel brutally beats Moktar to death. Abdel in turn is later killed by an explosion in the building he is in. The three brothers made decisive choices yet they all end up dead and as tragic as that seems, it is not the biggest tragedy of this film.

The catalyst for the events of the film is the release of a video of police officers killing Idir on social media. The viewer never actually sees the video or Idir’s death in any capacity until the final scene of the film in which the police officers shed their uniforms and are revealed to have tattoos of the variation of the Celtic cross associated with various white supremacist groups. Had the film ended immediately after Abdel’s death, Gavras could get away with presenting the film as a tragedy but in those final minutes, it is this reveal that reminds the viewer that they have been exposed to a bad manifesto.

Whether a manifesto is good or bad has little to do with moral implications but rather the structure and make-up of it. The best manifestos are full of clarity, conviction, ideas and intent. Whether written by Karl Marx, Valerie Solanas or Ted Kaczynski, the reader is left with a clear vision of what the author wants. In the introduction to Julian Hanna’s Manifesto Handbook, she states that manifestos possess “a kind of magic and madness that does not exist in any other genre.” The author is not bound to any expectation. One could say the act of producing a manifesto is unbinding oneself from the status quo while, ironically, conforming to the general conventions of the form.

The typical revolutionary manifesto has three main elements; the introduction where you are convinced the world is on the brink of destruction if there is no change, the analysis of how the world got to this brink and, finally, how to save the world. The opening scene of Athena showcases this horrible world on the brink of something truly catastrophic. Law enforcement drones on about inconclusive investigations and calls for peaceful protests against police brutality — which is a scenario many are familiar with in this day and age — but for how long? This inaction is disrupted by Karim’s desire for action and the time spent with each character paints a picture of how things got to that point. The residents of Athena are mostly French-Algerian Muslims who have been discriminated against by all levels of government. The authorities have failed them but they are forced to make do within their community at the very least. The deplorable living conditions of Athena and the oppression of its residents are gasoline in a bottle. Idir’s murder is the lit fuse. However, when Romain Gavras launches it, nothing ever catches fire and the viewer is left with broken glass and the nauseating smell of gasoline.

In an attempt to be neutral and nuanced, the film’s edge is made blunt. Of course, nothing is black and white in the world but similar to if you were to mix every colour in a palette, the result becomes unintelligible. Gavras tells the viewer in no uncertain terms that change is necessary but you cannot be as sympathetic to your oppressors as Abdel because that would put you at odds with your community. You also can’t be an anarchist like Karim because that would also put you at odds with your community. You absolutely cannot be as self-serving as Moktar for the same reasons. There’s also no clear sense of who exactly Gavras believes is the oppressor. For most of the film, it’s clear that the police are an antagonistic force or at least that is how they are viewed by most of the characters with the notable exception of Abdel. It isn’t until those final minutes that Gavras seems to take the baffling stance that it was not the police or a few bad apples in the force but, rather, that it was simply a group of unaffiliated instigators masquerading as law enforcement.

Athena as a film acknowledges the need for change and the reasons for it but it simply cannot imagine anything different. It is paralyzed by fear of a future that is better than our current experience. The manifesto decries, declares and demands but Romain Gavras lacks the conviction to commit to any of these actions and the viewer is left painfully aware of this unfortunate shortcoming. ♦