Riot by Frank Ternier

A young black man is killed in an altercation with a vigilant neighbor and the police. An indignant crowd gathered together. The feeling of injustice is high.
A group isolates itself. Emotion engenders riot .... In the absence of words, can the body take its revenge?

"Here words are dead. Only the body speaks". Frank Ternier makes consistently powerful films (from Swallowing the Devil to 8 Bullets), but this is by far the most explicitly anger-infused film.

Which has nothing to do with the animation style, by the way. Here, live-action and body performance take over to complement the animated part, which leads to. Working within a tightly structured (but always varied) geometrical space, Ternier brings out both the indifference and a sense of being lost in a space that can't support humanity. Rage and riots is only its natural equivalent.

With meticulously placed interaction between animation and live-action segments, Riot leaves no stone unturned in its depiction of bodily movement (live-action), emotional escalation (narrator), and graphical representation. The film effectively makes a case for being present at the scene and witnessing an event that you'd rather not remain silent about. A robust film.

CREDITS:

Director: Frank Ternier - Ideal Crash/
Music: Frédéric Duzan aka Zed
with Alan Page aka Junior coldboy, Waldo Pierre aka Junior Tiger and Suzie Babin

• Visit the Ideal Crash Page

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