Eastern Boys

At the Gare du Nord in Paris, Daniel, a middle-aged man, picks one boy out of a group of Eastern Europeans, Marek, and invites him home. The next day it is not only Marek who arrives: the whole group comes, empties the flat, and Daniel can do nothing. Then Marek comes back alone. The film is not interested in crime. It is interested in power changing hands continuously: in the first part Daniel is a buyer, in the second a victim, in the third a protector. It leaves him neither innocent nor guilty and never names what is between the two men. The form is in four parts: a long, almost wordless opening in the station, the invasion of the flat, two-handers, and a hotel thriller at the end. The director changes genre in each part. Robin Campillo wrote and directed. He had worked for years as Laurent Cantet's editor and co-writer; this is the film in which he built his own cinema, and he would go on to make 120 BPM. It won Best Film in the Horizons section at Venice in 2013. Olivier Rabourdin plays Daniel and Kirill Emelyanov plays Marek. Who it is for: viewers who like French cinema and structures that change genre. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a clear moral position. The film shows the imbalance of power in the relationship without judging it, and some will find that uncomfortable.