“Les fantômes” – Jonathan Millet presents a brilliant first film on exile

A photography in hand, Hamid goes around the construction sites and the welcome centers of Strasbourg in the search for the blurry and elusive silhouette of a man. That man is neither relative nor friend, as the plot progressively and subtly reveals, but Harfaz, a former Syrian executioner who, while never showing his face, tortured dozens of opponents to the regime. A former victim of Harfaz and a member of a secret organization of Syrian citizens that hunts war criminals, Hamid suspects a young academic studying chemistry. Haunted by his persecutor, Hamid himself becomes a ghost and, in a game of finely written duplicity, follows him step by step in his daily life. Like a dead amidst the living, Hamid observes the antithetical reflection of a life that is the opposite of his; indeed, contrary to Hamid, the supposed Harfaz – portrayed by Tawfeek Barhom who offers a remarkable performance – has perfectly adapted to this new life in Strasbourg. 

Les Fantômes also handles with great empathy the topic of exile and the profound difficulties of adapting to a new country after such trauma. While we might believe, a few times in the beginning of the film, in a potential love story between the main character and a former medical student, herself a refugee, Jonathan Millet evades every expectation of the viewer’s by displaying the social and relational limits that such trauma produces. The filmmaker also displays great psychological acumen in the writing of his main character – portrayed by Adam Bessa whom we had discovered in Harka by Lotfy Nathan – whose glance is permeated with the heavy weight of such a tragic past.

Traduction Emma Frigo