Rodeo

There are so many dif­fer­ent modes of sur­vival depend­ing on all mat­ter of cir­cum­stances includ­ing class, race, sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion and gen­der. In Lola Quivoron’s dar­ing debut fea­ture, co-writ­ten with her life part­ner and actress Anto­nia Bure­si, the main char­ac­ter relies on work­ing out­side a sys­tem full of struc­tur­al bar­ri­ers to per­sist. It plays out as a vis­cer­al crime action thriller, a detailed por­trait of a sub­cul­ture and a prob­ing char­ac­ter study of a young French-Guade­lou­pi­an woman who enters the male-dom­i­nat­ed world of cross-bitume (moto cross bik­ing) in France.

The cast is main­ly made up of non-pro­fes­sion­al actors, some of whom Quiv­o­ron found through the bik­ing com­mu­ni­ty while mak­ing her 2016 short film Au Loin, Bal­ti­more. First-time actress Julie Ledru, who plays the lead role of Julia, was dis­cov­ered on Insta­gram and her screen pres­ence daz­zles like a mete­or hurtling through the sky. The film rarely lets up thanks to a com­bi­na­tion of Ledru’s dynam­ic turn, kinet­ic cam­er­a­work with breath­less track­ing shots along open roads and impres­sive­ly chore­o­graphed action sequences packed full of thrilling bike and quad stunts.

What’s less engag­ing are the fan­ta­sy ele­ments. The occa­sion­al night­mare sequences are dis­tract­ing and do lit­tle more than add a sense of dread that is already deeply appar­ent (and duly affect­ing) thanks to Ledru’s per­for­mance and an unset­tling post-reg­gae­ton score by Kel­man Duran. In night-time scenes, where Julia’s fury reach­es boil­ing point and the misty skies glow yel­low, the cin­e­matog­ra­phy by Raphaël Van­den­buss­che inten­si­fies the film’s fiery and hell­ish qualities.

The beau­ti­ful­ly framed land­scapes veer between wild­ly entic­ing, and imbued with a sense of free­dom to per­ilous and fright­en­ing. The film is full of jux­ta­po­si­tions like this which Quiv­o­ron effec­tive­ly uses to build sus­pense as to whether Julia’s choic­es will even­tu­al­ly con­sume or lib­er­ate her.

Though their objec­tives are dif­fer­ent, Julia’s fear­less atti­tude is rem­i­nis­cent of the home­less Mona from Agnès Var­da Vagabond. Julia is a hus­tler who steals bikes to serve her pas­sion and make mon­ey. She infil­trates the all-male bike gang by replac­ing a mem­ber and spends her time pro­vok­ing peo­ple and caus­ing argu­ments. She’s a char­ac­ter who sticks her mid­dle fin­ger up at soci­etal expec­ta­tion and only code-switch­es when it aids her crim­i­nal activ­i­ty. She rolls with the punch­es, quite lit­er­al­ly at points, and is deter­mined to find her place in a world where men set the rules.

Quiv­o­ron demon­strates great care in her por­tray­al of Julia’s rela­tion­ship with Domi­no (Sébastien Schroed­er) and the impris­oned gang leader’s wife, Ophélie (Bure­si). Domi­no con­trols both of the women’s finances and Julia attempts a qui­et rebel­lion against his vice-tight grip. She clear­ly feels affec­tion towards Ophélie, though it’s ambigu­ous as to whether this is erot­ic or friend­ly. The women con­fide in one anoth­er to boost con­fi­dence. Female strug­gle and inter­sec­tion­al fem­i­nism com­pelling­ly revs the engines of this ten­der­ly craft­ed and exhil­a­rat­ing debut.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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