Sauvage

Léo is twenty two and works the street as a sex worker in Strasbourg. He has no home, no plan and saves nothing. Between him and his friend Ahd there is an attachment that is not returned. The film follows his days: clients, a medical examination, drugs, the park, places found to sleep. Camille Vidal-Naquet writes and directs, in his first feature. Félix Maritaud plays Léo. The choice is to refuse the rescue narrative. A way out is offered to Léo several times: a home, a relationship, a settled life. Each time he goes back, and the film does not present that as failure. Vidal-Naquet refuses to write him as a victim and asks for no pity, which is what separates it from most films on the subject. Maritaud carries the whole weight. The character explains almost nothing; what he wants is visible only in his body. It screened in Critics' Week at Cannes in 2018, where Maritaud won the rising star award. Sex and violence are shown explicitly. That is not provocation but a decision to remove distance. Who it is for: viewers who like hard French independent cinema and character portraits outside the template. Who it is not for: the content is direct and uncomfortable, and the narrative does not arrive anywhere, deliberately.