"I feel like I’m always being watched." In these times where image is king, where intense exhibitionism on social networks and video surveillance are rife, and where technological acceleration is continually opening up new windows - perhaps forcibly - onto the private lives of individuals, the film world is fast catching up, and Drone - Simon Bouisson’s debut feature film released in French cinemas on 2 October courtesy of Haut et Court - is a very interesting example of this.

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Whilst the anxiety-inducing potential of being filmed at short range by a total stranger has been clear since Hidden [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Margaret Menegoz
intervista: Michael Haneke
scheda film] by Michael Haneke, for example, or Lost Highway by David Lynch, the now very well-established existence of drones is providing the world of genre film with new and fertile ground for paranoiac expression. And it’s one of these intrusive flying contraptions which follows and spies on Émilie (Marion Barbeau), an architecture student who’s recently arrived in Paris for a course on renovating buildings led by a famous agency director (Cédric Kahn).

Solitary and shy, vulnerable yet bold, this young woman funds her studies by way of a grant (which she’ll soon lose out on) and by "camming" (showing her body on screen to paying clients). Her little secret is soon made public by her very insistent classmate Olivier (Stefan Crepon), but, worst of all, a worrying drone is forcing its way into her life, another entity which pays (via anonymous transfers) to watch her, this time through her windows as she goes about her daily life. There’s a second drone too, helping Émilie with her architecture project, but this one also turns out to be increasingly intrusive, especially when she falls in love with Mina (Eugénie Derouand). The young woman does everything she can to escape this dangerous, faceless protector…

By appointing a drone a co-protagonist in his film, Simon Bouisson totally revitalises the use (often over-trivialised) of this technology in the film world, and treats viewers to some splendid yet oppressive nocturnal sequences (with Ludovic Zuili heading up photography) both in the skies of Paris and in the abandoned mill which Émilie is planning on renovating. Unfortunately, despite being shored up by metaphors (the basement, the underground car park, etc.) and steeped in some incredibly physical action (a chase, an accident, an investigation using a hacker), the film’s second layer, exploring the need to free ourselves from others’ gaze and power (men’s gaze and power, in particular) and exposing the conflict which gives rise to metamorphosis, turns out to be slightly more uneven.

This doesn’t prevent Drone from imposing itself as an original first feature film, however, notably in its desire to define its own codes based on a classic premise. Beneath its deceptively clear surface and its spiralesque form (based on a screenplay penned by the director and Fanny Burdino), it might be said that the film tries to inject a few too many suggestions than its remit allows. But the chilling mirror Drone holds up to our society, its visual tours de force and its remarkable music composed by Paul Sabin make it worth far more than a fleeting glance.

Drone was produced by Haut et Court and sold worldwide by StudioCanal.