‘Block Pass’: Cannes Review

Dir: Antoine Chevrollier. France. 2024. 103 mins

Friendship is a cherished bulwark against small-town prejudice in Block Pass, the first feature from Bafta-nominated television director Antoine Chevrollier (The Bureau, Baron Noir, Oussekine). A vividly etched coming-of-age drama with propulsive storytelling and a charismatic lead performance from Oussekine star Sayyid El Alami, it makes for an impressive French title that should attract programmers and distributors following its Critics Week premiere.

 A vividly etched coming-of-age drama 

Chevrollier instantly immerses us in the lives of some teenage boys in the small town of Longué-Jumelles, in western France. Typically boisterous and in search of distraction, they are all bluster and banter. There is a longstanding friendship between Jojo (Amaury Foucher) and Willy (Sayyid El Alami), boyhood pals who always look out for each other. Jojo is the more daredevil of the duo, drawn to death-defying acts of bravado. He is also a competitive motocross player, constantly practising at the La Pampa track constructed by his father David (Damien Bonnard) and Willy’s late father. Willy is a gentler soul, more of a loyal sidekick than a leader.

Cinematographer Benjamin Roux, who worked on episodes of Baron Noir and Oussekine, makes the most of the bright sunshine, enveloping the film in warmth and saturated colours. Scenes of the motocross rally add an adrenaline kick of energy, as the camera follows the heart of the action from lethal turns and sky high jumps to the stones and dust spat out along the way.

These boys seem to live carefree lives infused with the invincibility of youth. While all are facing the challenge of a defining moment in their lives – final exams are approaching, an uncertain future beckons – their only immediate concerns are the next bout of fun and how to find some girls. Chevrollier gradually reveals, however, that Jojo and Willy are both facing much more complex and fraught circumstances. 

Willy still feels the absence of a father who has been dead for a decade. His mother Severine (Florence Janas) wants to move on and start a fresh life with her boyfriend Etienne (Mathieu Demy), a decent man who Willy can’t help but resent. Jojo has his own challenges in a father who is desperate for his son to win him a championship. Jojo is also gay, a fact that Willy discovers when he chances upon him having sex with another man. If anything, the discovery strengthens their relationship – Willy is accepting and only briefly hurt that Jojo has kept this secret life from him. Others are less tolerant, however, and there are escalating consequences in a small, tight-knit community full of homophobia. “Each time I’m back in Longue, it feels like 1950,” says Marina (Leonie Dahan Lamort), an older girl who has returned from college and caught Willy’s attention.

Chevrollier cites Kimberly Peirce’s Boys Don’t Cry (1999) as one of the inspirations for Block Pass, and there is also an echo of Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show (1971) in its portrait of small-town life. Chevrollier is working with a number of collaborators from a television career that has honed his storytelling skills. Willy is the centre of the story but he is surrounded by a rich gallery of well-developed secondary characters who all have substance and weight. There is no weak link in the fine ensemble cast that includes Axelle Fresneau as Willy’s sympathetic younger sister Melo, and Janas as an increasingly exasperated mother playing peacekeeper in the face of Willy’s intransigent refusal to accept change.

Newcomer Foucher is a striking screen presence, lending heart and fire to his portrayal of Jojo, while El Alamo exudes star quality, conveying the spectrum of conflicting emotions and competing instincts in Willy as he is faced with a moving moment of reckoning.