‘Beating Sun’: Venice Review

Dir: Philippe Petit. France. 2022. 85 mins.

The socially-aware tale of one man’s struggle to convert a square of urban Marseilles wasteland into a place of value for the people rather than the profiteers, Beating Sun is that rare beast, a compelling drama about town planning. Driven by an intense, alert performance from Swann Arlaud, Philippe Petit’s engaging, thought-provoking feature debut plays like a less-shouty Ken Loach, presenting its big ideas on a small canvas, remaining low-key rather than bombastic, and keeping a careful eye on the truthfulness of its characters so that it never feels like agitprop. These are all elements which, when rolled up with its on-point message, should mean that Sun, following its appearance in Critics’ Week at Venice, will continue to shine brightly on the festival circuit.

Arlaud is spiky in both physique and attitude as the engaging Max

Professionally unsuccessful, largely because of his tendency to dream, Max (Arlaud) is a landscape architect, moonlighting as a gardener, who has entered a competition with his plan to rejuvenate the square as a garden space to reinforce social bonds in the city. (The idea of creating wall gardens for five-star hotels is, in his own words, anathema to him.) The square is currently used for local people to hang out in, and early scenes stress the sense of neighbourhood community that’s in danger of being lost: among them is skateboarder Ange (Raoul Mirguet), who tragically dies there early on.

When his project is not chosen, Max is abandoned by his disenchanted colleague Gaspar (Pascal Reneric). He approaches the competition judge Paul (Gregoire Oestermann) to ask him for support. Paul — super cool and impeccably civilised, but also the kind of man who considers the death of a young skateboarder to be a fundraising opportunity rather than a tragedy — doesn’t commit, instead offering Max the chance to design a garden for a new bar to be run by the former French professional footballer Djibril Cisse, here playing himself.

But the ever-impulsive Max oversteps the mark by going behind Paul’s back, somewhat humiliatingly given his ideals, to get Cisse directly involved in his wasteland project. Max’s obsession with his project becomes overwhelming, causing him to lose his gardening job.

On the personal side, Max has a daughter, Margot (Lee Fortune-Petit), by patient, long-suffering Alma (high-profile French-Israeli actor Sarah Adler). Alma seems to love Max for being a good guy, whilst also being frustrated at his thoughtlessness and inability to bring in the money — a frustration that intensifies when she learns that she is pregnant. Things are skilfully drawn, framed and presented until the last fifteen minutes, at which point Beating Sun goes into a kind of meltdown, winding up with an ending that’s so open it comes over as disappointingly inconclusive.

Arlaud, who in 2020 won several awards for his role in Francois Ozon’s By The Grace Of God as a man fighting for a different kind of justice, is spiky in both physique and attitude as the engaging Max. His winsome charm means that we’re prepared to forgive him for sometimes being so annoying, much as the other characters do. Max’s relationships are subtly and elegantly drawn, delightfully so with Margot, while his nuanced exchanges with Paul prevent the film, although it’s obvious which side Petit is on, from ever becoming a straightforward battle between good and evil.

The even-handedness of the script and its keenness to eke out the best of its characters — unlike the system Petit is questioning — are perhaps Beating Sun’s defining trait. But on the downside, Max is lacking self-reflection — what is driving him to complete the project, especially when the personal and professional risks to him are so high, is never made clear.

As the film proceeds, the targets of Beating Sun — the title could be an allusion to Max’s hammer-like insistence on making people’s lives brighter — move beyond the moral blindness of authorities and into the area of basic human values. “If you want the Town Hall to approve your project, you’ll have to show them that it will bring in money”, Paul tells Max, suggesting that Petit’s wider target is the incursion of corporate gain into the public good. Cities have become shop windows for governments.

Paul criticises Max for being too idealistic, as though that was a bad thing. “You should have been a gardener or a teacher”, he ironically tells Max, having completely forgotten that these professions, though they won’t make you rich, might actually make the world a better place. That may be a cliche, but it’s one which it’s important to be reminded of, and which Beating Sun, in its quiet, old-fashioned way, renders with unusual thoughtfulness and compassion.