Age of Panic

6 May 2012, Paris, the evening of the French presidential result. Laetitia, a television reporter, is working live inside the crowd on Rue de Solferino; the same day her ex-partner turns up wanting to see the children, and the private crisis tangles with the crowd in the street. Justine Triet's first feature. Laetitia Dosch plays Laetitia, Vincent Macaigne the ex. The method is odd and risky: it was shot on the real election night, inside the real crowd. The actors played fictional scenes in the middle of documentary footage, and most of the people around them did not know a camera was running. What comes out of it is political elation and private collapse held in the same frame. The distance between a shouting crowd and shouting parents is the whole point. Triet went on to win the Palme d'Or with Anatomy of a Fall; the interest of her first film, separation and the question of whose truth it is, is still running there. Who it is for: viewers who like improvised French films with a documentary texture. Who it is not for: anyone wanting calm; this is loud from start to finish.