NEXUS - Review

 

Nexus

Director : Jean Alloin

Starring : Quentin Santarelli, Violette Thouzeau

Runtime : 27 minutes

Digital - Color 

Language : French

Country : France

2023

Storyline :

During a vacation in a foreign country with his sister, Alex discovers messages left by a previous tenant of their apartment.

© Jean Alloin

Nexus by Jean Alloin plunges us into a mysterious closed-door where the quest for play and innocence takes precedence over the adult and the rationality of acts. 

The story is carried by two protagonists, Alex (Quentin Santarelli) and his sister Lili (Violette Thouzeau), who discover in their apartment messages left by the previous tenant during their holiday abroad. The director prefers here an intriguing and good-natured atmosphere to a disturbing and somewhat horrifying universe in view of the few lines of the synopsis.

© Jean Alloin

 The sets are simple and clean; the accomplice and endearing characters from the beginning, act like noble children, constantly in search of their daily pleasure. Everything is about relaxation and leisure: holidays, video games, reading, films, museums… but the discovery of these strange messages brings a bit of enigma and the part of psychology is then treated in the form of dream and hallucination through the character of Alex, disturbed by these secrets. 

© Jean Alloin

The soundtrack becomes somewhat sensory and deep but we never go to something dark and tortured. On the contrary, the director leads us to think instead of Alex: Am I in my place? Am I well integrated? Am I in the right place? Alex then tries as he can to solve this enigma finally very naive. But what is naivete when we become a child again for a few days of freedom? Nexus intelligently lays the groundwork for this existential question.

In the end, the film is a nice entertainment of thirty minutes in which we let ourselves be carried by these two characters with a tender and docile heart. 

By Hallucinea Film Festival