Material

Gradiva directed by Marine Atlan, cast: Antonia Buresi, Colas Quignard — France, Italy — 2026 — 145 min.

The winning film of the Cannes Critics Week is a tale of first loves, a dormant volcano of youth and a school trip as a modern version of a romantic grand tour.

Inspired by Wilhelm Jensen's novel Gradiv (1902), combining Eros with Tanatos, he follows a group of French high school students who are taken to Naples by a charismatic Latin teacher. It is a city on the brink of disaster, a meeting place of pleasure and violence, a labyrinth of splendor and misery. Stunning with its cultural richness, steeped in religious devotion, exposing to the public the bodies of the inhabitants of Pompeii frozen in lava, Naples becomes a metaphor for the subconscious. It is difficult to find a better setting for youthful passions and social games, whose status in the group is at stake. Atlan charts the complicated relationship between Tony and James, intelligent, cheeky class provocateurs and friends, under the tup and arrogance of those who hide their true desires. Their opposite is the classy gray mouse, orbiting on the fringes of Suzanne's rivalries, crushes and intrigue.

In the film's spiritual, blurring the boundaries between reality and fantasy, it is she who seems to be the titular “walker”. Although they are peers, teenagers are by no means equal: Atlan sees in them unconscious hostages of the past and scenarios that have long been written for them. Because Gradiva, in addition to the existential dimension, also has this social, critically looking at the mechanism of elite reproduction.

Małgorzata Sadowska, nowehoryzonty.pl