Souvenirs de la Géhenne

Ten years after the racist homicide of a young North African by a local forty-year-old, Thomas Jenkoe returns to Grande-Synthe in Northern France, where he grew up and where the Front National are enjoying considerable success in the elections. With a voice-over reading statements from the case file that he was exceptionally allowed to access, he interlaces impressive shots of the urban landscape and on-the-spot testimonies, stories, rumours, comments. The weave becomes tighter and tighter and what first appear to be no more than architectural features help to construct the diabolical dramaturgy of “Gehenna”. Rarely has a news item been so deeply explored both from the angle of the killer’s background and borderline personality and the daytime and night-time filming of a town “hemmed in” by an immense metallurgical industrial complex (ArcelorMittal, a town hidden within the town). Caught between the apocalyptic beauty enhanced by the wide-screen format and poorly designed town planning, the landscape is not however the subject of discourse. While the editing and sound echo the amalgamation that results in irreparable damage, they create a tension between scales, which cinematographically recreates a contemporary malaise extending far beyond the boundary of Grande-Synthe. (Charlotte Garson)