Director: Antoine Chevrollier
Writers: Berenice Bocquillon, Antoine Chevrollier, Faiza Guene
Stars: Damien Bonnard, Mathieu Demy, Leonie Dahan-Lamort
Synopsis: Willy and Jojo are childhood friends who never leave each other’s side. To beat boredom, they train at the Pampa, a motocross track. One evening, Willy discovers Jojo’s secret.
The Cannes Film Festival always has an array of coming-of-age stories lined up in their slate, whether in competition for the Palme d’Or or their independent sections, such as the Semaine de la Critique (Critic’s Week). Many directors are given the opportunity to concoct their near-adulthood tales that, one way or another, reflect their own lives. Antoine Chevrollier is one of those filmmakers in this year’s festival, presenting his latest work, Block Pass (La Pampa) – a genuine yet poorly structured story about two best friends’ trials and tribulations, as one of them deals with the loss of his father, while the other has his most kept secret revealed.
Block Pass begins with a dare between friends – a dangerous antic that might kill someone in the worst-case scenario. Jojo (Amaury Foucher) must cross the busy highway on his motorbike at top speed. His best friend, Willy (Sayyid El Alami), is highly preoccupied with what might happen if Jojo doesn’t make it or crashes into a vehicle. Everything goes well. Willy recognizes that it was a risky move on his part yet celebrates this stunt, as he deems it entertainingly maddening. After this maneuver, we get a glimpse of their life as off-road circuit racers, where the adrenaline rush fuels each turn and jump. These scenes reminded me of Lola Quiveron’s Rodeo, which coincidentally also played at the Cannes Film Festival two years ago.
The viewer is placed at the center of this subculture, but instead of dirt riders in Quiveron’s film, Chevrollier uses motor cross. Unlike the aforementioned film, Block Pass doesn’t focus on this daredevil, thrilling lifestyle’s specifics and ins and outs. It gives hints during the first act to get you in the headspace of the lead characters – the reasons why they do the sport. I would have appreciated seeing more of this life, not to the extent that Quiveron did in great detail, but something of that nature. It adds more personality to the film and provides glances at a side of the world that most people don’t know about. Instead, Chevrollier focuses on the dramatic elements rather than drawing up the environment.
When the races are finished and the duo is tired from celebrating, Willy and Jojo return to their respective homes, dealing with their family troubles and demons. Willy is still emotionally wounded by the death of his father. He hasn’t been able to move on, hence the aggression and hostility toward his mother’s new partner. Meanwhile, Jojo is trying to reach the standards that his father has for him, as well as keeping his sexuality a secret from the people around him. The reason why Jojo hides this big secret is because this subculture is very masculine, and he knows that they won’t look at once they hear about his sexuality, they won’t look at him the same way – treating him with disrespect and malice. The only person who will be there for him is his best friend.
Block Pass struggles with how Chevrollier handles the intertwining between Willy’s grief and his relationship with Jojo, sometimes making it feel like two different projects. When Chevrollier focuses on one side of the story, the other is sidelined for a very long period of time, making each narrative intersection between the two have a lesser impact than it should. Each of these topics, grief, and acceptance, needed more time to be examined. They remain incomplete; the audience wants to learn more about the characters and their respective angst. Willy and Jojo suffer plenty, yet they aren’t given many moments of brevity so that we can know them better. While the emotions are palpable, the notions about understanding are somewhat short-sighted.
Halfway through Block Pass, Chevrollier pivots the story into a Close territory.
And that transition in dramatic tone doesn’t contain the emotional potency or subtlety that Lukas Dhont provided his film with when approaching that heavy emotional turn. During that section of the film, the story is handled with care yet in a loose manner that makes each scene afterward feel a tad distant. However, when Block Pass is nearing its end, Chevrollier delivers one final punch that is very effective. It is a short and slight moment that not only makes up for the poor management of the narrative beats in the film’s second half but also encapsulates the beautiful friendship that Willy and Jojo have in a single frame. But this moment arrives so late that it makes you wish that Chevrollier had delivered the same emotional potency to the rest of the story.
