Disco Boy

Giacomo Abbruzzese’s debut drama set in Paris and Niger evidences a major new talent.

This first feature from Italy's Giacomo Abbruzzese – he both wrote and directed it – is a remarkable and memorable debut. Ultimately its adventurous spirit leads to it losing its way, but it's a film of note for all that. The chosen title might well lead you to expect something entirely different from the two stories that are told here, tales that interweave initially and then fuse into one. The opening images of Disco Boy are set in Africa and give us a glimpse, no more, of young people who as we will later discover are members of a guerrilla movement known as MEND (Movement for Emancipation of the Niger Delta). The group leader is a young man named Jomo (Morr Ndiaye) and also present is his sister Udoka (Laetitia Ky). But, while this footage holds out the promise that they will prove to be important to the film, Disco Boy instantly switches to another setting and introduces us to the character who will be central here.

This figure is another young man, but he is Aleksei (Franz Rodowski) a Belorussian whom we first meet when he is on a coach travelling with his friend Mikhail (Michal Balicki). They appear to be sports fans who are visiting Poland on a three-day visa but, whereas that is the aim of the others on the coach, these two have decided to make a bid for a better life by starting afresh in France. However, the plan goes seriously awry and when Aleksei reaches Paris he is alone. He is also an illegal immigrant without a passport who recognises what he needs to do when he learns that the French Foreign Legion is prepared to take on promising recruits whatever their backgrounds. Furthermore, acceptance there leads not only to a permit for residence but after five years provides the opportunity to claim a French passport. Once signed up, Aleksei undergoes tough training and right up to this stage only the opening moments of the film have indicated that the situation in Niger will play a part in it.

What happens next first takes us back to Jomo and Udoka to expand on their activism and their stand against the pollution and devastation of the land in the Delta that is being caused by a big international corporation. Then with the arrival of men intent on freeing hostages taken by MEND we find that these are legionnaires and that Aleksei is among them. Before too long we will find him back in France but by that time he has been traumatised by the violence in which he has been involved having come face to face with Jomo and his men. Abbruzzese’s film will indeed end in the kind of night club setting that the title might lead you to expect, but nevertheless the last third of the film is centred on the impact on Aleksei of what he has experienced in Niger.

Disco Boy is certainly notable for the acting in it. Ever since 2021’s Great Freedom we have been aware of both the acting ability and the strong screen presence of Franz Rodowski and he gives this film a very strong centre. But he is not the only player to impress: Morr Ndiaye is a newcomer but as Jomo he too commands the screen. The role of Jomo’s sister may take the eye less but Laetitia Ky is also clearly talented. Yet in spite of their contributions what stands out most of all in Disco Boy is the exceptional directorial skill of Giacomo Abbruzzese. His film is further aided by the skills of the famed photographer Hélene Louvart but the way in which he tells the story in the first half marks him out as a major talent. His storytelling ability with its emphasis less on words than on expressive images is notable incorporating as it does an eye for effective use of camera movement and editing. If some scenes in Niger bring to mind Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, it is Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket that is recalled by the training scenes but the freshness of Abbruzzese’s approach ensures that these comparisons are not limiting. Sound is also crucial to his work: Disco Boy may begin and end with natural sounds but the music provided by Vitalic is central to this film, not only when night club music becomes key but in the offbeat background score which does so much to capture the tension and menace in the story.

With so much going for it that it makes Disco Boy a film that anyone with a serious interest in cinema ought to see, it is a pity that its second half should be so much less effective than what has gone before. There are two reasons why I found that to be the case. One lies in the fact that the pivotal event in the film is the experience that Aleksei has in Niger which involves fighting at night and that for showing this the film opts for infrared night vision photography. This happens out of the blue and it is a stylisation that looks like something that belongs to an animated feature. It's bad enough that it distances us by seeming so out of place but the error of judgment is underlined because the impact of what happens here is indeed crucial to what happens in the rest of the film. The other problem stems from Abbruzzese’s attitude to the story he is telling since he is on record as saying that he relishes the kind of ambiguity inherent in material that can be understood in more ways than one. Consequently, the last third of his film shows scenes that could be read as hallucinatory or ghost-like and that may or may not express post traumatic stress disorder. To a far greater extent than is desirable, each viewer has to interpret how the film really fits together and what it is about. Ultimately, I saw it as a tale of two young men, Aleksei and Jomo, who deserved to live ordinary lives which might well have made them disco boys. Instead, both in different ways are cornered by circumstance due to the kind of world in which we live, a world which in one way or another pressurises individuals into filling societal roles that they would not otherwise have chosen. However, rather than having to make my own guess I wanted the film to define its theme more directly as well as clarifying how its stylised elements should be read. But what emerges loud and clear is that regardless of any misjudgements Giacomo Abbruzzese is a talent to be applauded.

MANSEL STIMPSON

Cast: Franz Rodowski, Morr Ndiaye, Laetitia Ky, Michal Balicki, Leon Lučev, Prince Bara, Matteo Olivetti, Wahab Oladiti, Salem Kissat, Mutamba Kalonji, Tiffany Tatibouet Cox, Bogdan Frankowski.

Dir Giacomo Abbruzzese, Pro Lionel Massol and Pauline Seigland, Screenplay Giacomo Abbruzzese, Ph Hélene Louvart, Pro Des Esther Mysius, Ed Fabrizio Federico, Ariane Boukerche and Giacomo Abbruzzese, Music Vitalic, Costumes Pauline Jacquard and Marina Monge.

Films Grand Huit/Dugong Films/La Compagnie Cinématographique/Panache Productions/Division/Stromboli Films-Conic.
92 mins. France/Italy/Belgium/Poland. 2023. US Rel: 2 February 2024. UK Rel: 29 March 2024. Cert. 15.