Among the awarded films during this 70th edition of Cannes Film Festival, The German film In The Fade (Aus dem nichts), from the director Germano-Turkish Fatih Akinwhich won the prize for best female interpretation to Diane Kruger. Prize deserved for this actress who took on the role of the wife and mother who wants to take revenge on the terrorists who killed her spouse and her son very well. She has managed to transmit her emotions with strength and conviction so that the spectator feels about himself and puts herself in his place.
From the first press screening, this film sparked controversy. Journalists had indeed left the room accusing the director of Nazism. Others reproached him for an immoral end since, according to them, advising revenge.
Synopsis: Katja is married to Kurdish Nuri Sekeri, with whom she has a five -year -old son. One day, she puts her son at her husband’s office. When she comes back in the evening, she finds the road blocked. A policeman tells him that a man and a child were killed in the explosion of an artisanal bomb.
From that moment, Katja’s life collapses. This follows the consequences of this barbaric act: depression, mourning, hatred, trial and revenge.
Although this film is inspired by a series of attacks committed in Germany against people of Turkish origin, by members of the neo-Nazi nsu group, it is topical because of all these terrorist acts which occur continuously all over the world.
During these attacks, we often talk about the victims, we pay tribute to them, we commemorate their death, but what about their loved ones, who must overcome their mourning and try to continue to live normally?
In The Fade Will try to answer this question through the example of this wife and mother who will have to face this horrible drama.
In The Fade – The marriage of Katja and Nuri
The spectator will live his mourning with Katja. Mourning all the more difficult since it must also face racist prejudices (it is a mixed couple) and the police suspicions (Nori had a criminal record).
In addition to the affliction caused by the loss of these dear beings, there is a need for justice. Those who remain want to do justice to those who have gone and that the culprits pay.
But does justice exist? Do we manage to get it? When this is not the case, what to do?
Katja will have to face the trial of the couple accused of having committed the attack in which her husband and son perished. Will she get justice?
No, the accused are released. Not because they were recognized innocent, but by application of the rule which says that doubt benefits the accused. Does this rule apply to terrorists? Helplessness of justice in the face of these dramas.
In The Fade – The Court of Justice
The director knew how to film all this part devoted to justice very well. The universe of the Court of Justice is sanitized. Sanitized and cold. Soulless. When the medical examiner reads the autopsy report, it is untenable, she reads it mechanically, professionally. As an automaton could have done.
Is it to say that the rule of law should in no case be influenced by emotions? No places to feelings, just apply the rule of law, coldly, without mood? Or, conversely, is it to show that the law and those who apply it have become like inhuman machines, which at the limit makes the situation even more intolerable?
Likewise, one wonders about the limits of the state of rights when one realizes that fundamental rights are above all used by the executioners against their victims, as shown by the sordid role of a lawyer for the accused.
What to do to obtain justice?
Do we have the right to do justice either in the event of failure of the justice system?
Katja, in the third part of the film will decide to take revenge. She brings the spectator to life, her hesitations, his reflections … to reach the final scene.
Why did some journalists criticize this film for praising Nazism? I didn’t understand. At no time did I feel that. Unlike elsewhere. This film is deeply anti -Nazism. At the same time, he shows that terrorists are not always Islamist extremists. Muslims are also victims sometimes. In fact, terrorism has neither religion nor nationality. The threat awaits us all and will watch us for a long time.
Furthermore, the director wanted nothing to impose or judge. Rather, he insisted on the human aspect by filming the point of view of a bruised woman, who is actually a third victim of the attack. With her, Fatih Akin trains the spectator and makes him feel the same anger and the same rage against this enormous injustice which transforms this woman and pushes her to revenge. We feel his anger, his despair and his fear.
The film is very poignant. The subject is strong, of disconcerting realism and above all encourages reflection.
Diane Kruger wins the female interpretation prize for her role as Katja in “In the Fade”.
Neïla Driss
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