27/08/2024 - Michiel Blanchart seizes on the tropes of the social thriller with infectious glee and applies them to his own city, Brussels, during a night that never ends

Unveiled as the opening film at the Nouvelles Vagues Festival in Biarritz, where it won the Audience Award (see the news) and now out in France on 28 August courtesy of Gaumont and in Belgium on 4 September via Lumière, Night Call [+see also:
interview: Michiel Blanchart
film profile] is the first feature by Michiel Blanchart, a promising young Belgian filmmaker on whom Hollywood has already placed its bets. In fact, his latest short film, You're Dead Hélène, developed at the So Film de genre residence, which won the Best Short Film Award at Gérardmer and was shortlisted for the Oscars, caught the eye of Sam Raimi, who acquired the rights for a US feature-film adaptation, currently in progress. It's an understatement to say that we were curious to discover the director's first feature, which, in a completely different style but still exploring the genre, doesn't disappoint.

The film focuses on the turbulent destiny of Mady (an astonishing Jonathan Feltre). A student by day, Mady is also a locksmith by night. Discreet, diligent and determined, he tries not to make any waves, well aware that as a young black man, his best profile is probably a low one. While revising for his exams, he receives a seemingly normal call from a young woman who has lost her keys. Despite his nervousness, he decides to trust her. It's a decision that sends him into a whirlwind of a hellish night, forcing him not only to adopt a crook's costume that's much too big for him, but also to face moral dilemmas that will reveal his true nature. Along the way he meets a mysterious young woman (Natacha Krief), an adversary on the precipice of disaster (Jonas Bloquet), a few crooked henchmen, and a gang leader as ruthless as he is understanding (Romain Duris, as chilling as ever). As he struggles through the chaos, his situation finds an unexpected echo in the fever that grips the city that night.

A nocturnal urban thriller that begins as a social film, or almost, where the revolt of the Black Lives Matter demonstrators beats down on the city's damp pavement, Night Call quickly takes on the trappings of a gangster film, with its statutory dose of lies and manipulation, before turning into an action film thanks to a few hyper-realistic fight scenes and, above all, a handful of breathless chases through the streets of Brussels. While the tropes of the genre are respected, it is enriched not only by the political content of the context in which Mady evolves (what better safe place for a young black man to face the police than a Black Lives Matter demonstration?), but also by the character of Mady himself, a reluctant hero, or rather an anti-hero who hurts himself to be violent and save his skin.

Night Call is produced by Daylight Films (Belgium) and Formosa Productions (France), as well as Quad Films (France).

(Translated from French by Margaux Comte)