Tropic We had already seduced ourselves this winter in Gérardmer, so much so that we took advantage of the NIFFF for a second screening! Like the film Our ceremonies presented in the same year (see Interview), Tropic tells the story of two fusion brothers caught up in a tragic event. In the not-so-distant future, the twins Lázaro and Tristán are working hard to be selected together for the space mission. Eternity. Their destiny will change as a cosmic residue falling from the sky contaminates Tristán. Physically reduced and now intellectually delayed, the young prodigy sees this fantastic incident upset the family cell...
Criticism of Tropic
In addition to our present criticism, we urge you to read our Interview ed Salier and the two main actors, Pablo Cobo (Lázaro) and Louis Peres (Tristán), in order to discover behind the scenes of the filming and the work at work to realize Tropic.
Body-horror with skin blossom
Presented in five separate temporal acts, Tropic cultivates a sensitive staging at the service of the psychological evolution of the characters. Each chapter begins on a panoramic plane of this mysterious lake where Tristán was contaminated by a green incandescent meteor. Each act results in a scene that systematically holds the viewer in breath. The role of water (also sensitive in Flowing This year) and elements go through all the work, as if one were passing with the two brothers from one state to another. Ambitious program – and probably without return – the mission Eternity is also a preparation of excellence with a harsh physical and intellectual training. Elite, performance and competition govern this competition of excellence where only the best will be chosen...
The introductory scene of the film immediately gives color. Immersed in a swimming pool, participants of the space program are seated on the ground, weighted by weights during this d'apnea test designed to separate candidates by their ability to control themselves. Some already go back to the surface, while Tristán remains impassive. While Lázaro is about to do the same, his brother holds him by the leg.
Always imperturbable before the accident, Tristán is the very image of determination. Confident, funny, and busy, it's the archetype of success. His fraternal relationship is in the image of symbiosis, a bond that releases as much as he can eventually stifle the other. Less talented than his brother (though brilliant), Lázaro worries: « What if you're caught and I'm not? ». A cruel dilemma that will pass through Tropic From beginning to end.
An OST in weightlessness
Weared by an OST that does not lesine on the synths, one always recognizes a sense of rhythm in the staging. Édouard Salier had already made some clips from the bands Massive Attack, Air, Justice or Metronomy. The soundtrack of the SebastiAn participate here greatly in the atmospheric atmosphere of Tropic. You can also listen in full (or buy) Here to appreciate its richness and depth.
« His dark universe, his peasy underbasses corresponded so much to the universe that I imagined for Tropic, and at the same time he is able to bring back a form of romanticism and melancholy in his arrangements »
The film will gradually evolve with a silver grain (a 16 mm capture) symbolizing a certain adolescent carelessness to a sharp, chiseled 4K digital image, recalling Lázaro's growing determination to deal with family trauma.
From the first stages, Édouard Salier manages to involve us emotionally, especially with this passage where the mother and her two sons dance during this suspended moment: a scene of joy in a home where the father is absent but where love and devotion are never lacking. Tropic borrows a lot in the 80s or at least an imaginary that we make of our childhood during these touching windows of family bliss. Simulator training sessions also cultivate a retro futuristic side to the air Tron to the sounds resolutely Eighties machinery. In general, Tropic gives the impression of being at the crossroads of times... As futuristic as it is strangely contemporary.
Dreams of stars and sky blue
From the camera to the shoulder to the more static planes, there is a real progression in the service of narration. Tropic mostly evolves in twilight as if the two protagonists were suspended on this blue hour peak line, between day and night, hope and fear. Orange glows pass through the image like shooting stars and the many shots on the faces draw the violence and vivacity of the lively emotions that pass through the two brothers. Special mention to the remarkable work of Mathieu Plainfossé, the chief operator, perfectly connects with the subject of the film.
Behind the title of the film is the metaphor of two brothers who, like the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, are similar but different. These two parallels of the Earth's sphere, equidistant from the equator, define the zone where the Sun passes to the zenith to each solstice. This is all at stake in the mission. Eternity : extract from the Earth's orbit, rise out of the atmosphere to win the sky, get closer to the sun, even to burn wings like Icare. To succeed and leave his own behind; mission Eternity is paradoxically what binds these two brothers forever. By definition, however, the tropics follow two parallel trajectories condemned to never cross.
You can only see with the heart
Tropic is always correct, nothing is free or left to chance. In the underwater, the film also evokes the spectre of VOCID and subtly suggests a ruined humanity whose only escape lies in the hope of colonizing space as the ultimate space to tame after the ground failure. Like a new chance for humanity.
Edward Salier's feature film of course borrows from body-horror to make us feel the power of the emotions experienced by this small family where the touching mother has sacrificed everything so that her children can touch their common dream. We are struck by the troubling makeup of Tristán, combined with the successful game of Louis Peres, unrecognizable once handicapped by this meteor whose origin is eminently fantastic.
Disfigured, Tristán recalls Tetsuo, the filmography of Carpenter or Elephant Man : so many tortured characters whose being is parasitized from inside. Hidden behind a half mask that would almost remind Jason, Tristán's blinded face is double-edged, like two facets of a past gone and yet cruelly so close: an eternal ghost pain that nothing seems to be able to extinguish.
Addressing issues of marginality, otherness and disability, Tropic is a deeply human fraternal drama, sometimes tragic, sometimes touching, in which the spectator will simmer from beginning to end. Certainly one of the most fantastic films of the year, Tropic Comes out on August 2, 2023. A film not to be missed this summer!
Trailer of Tropic
Very nice review for one of the films that scored the most during this NIFFF! And which makes you want to go back to the hall for his exit (hoping that he can make a way to Helvetia ^^)...
You can see on the Unifrance website the possibilities to see the film or not on the whole planet, I don't know if it's up to date (I didn't know this option) but for the moment, unless I'm mistaken, RAS for Canada and Switzerland from the site, including VOD... I hope this will evolve soon or that a DVD release, bluray is in the bins. I imagine that this will depend in part on the success of the film in France.
https://www.unifrance.org/film/53968/tropic
Overwhelming humanity and visually grandiose (a 16 mm camera capture at the shoulder when the teen fire burns that evolves towards digital 4K stabilized at the hour of responsibility), this family drama on disability (where the body horror at the Cronenberg comes out) imposes itself as a sincere work and of rare accuracy with two actors in the firmament. In five chapters mixing rivalry, denial, rejection, hatred and love, it is a magnificent and upsetting story about fraternal ties that is told to us.
We enjoyed Gérardmer bye!
[...] technical. It is also the game of festival frenzy. To read ideally after our review of Tropic, certainly one of the best fantastic films of the year. Release date 2 [...]
This article makes you want to dive apnea in Tropic!
Don't hesitate, MaG's favourite! 😉