French Film Reviews: Dans La Brume, Starring Romain Duris and Olga Kurylenko

This Franco-Canadian production is known as Just a Breath Away in the rest of the world. One might have thought that the film would reference eco-political concerns, given the increasing number of days of severe air pollution in Paris the past few years, plus the unsettling rise of far-right politics the world over and activism on inequality and climate-change, all of which appear to be building towards something. This would have been in a strong tradition in previous iconic horror movies like Invasion of the Bodysnatchers or Night of the Living Dead (both referencing the communist scare of '50s America), or The Fog and The Mist which have a similar basic premise. But it doesn't do any of these things and sticks to a fairly straightforward superficial plot, which is a tad disappointing. Indeed the central two, very attractive, characters with a special-needs daughter needing saving, while "saving the world" looks a bit (a lot) like it may be designed to appeal to Hollywood (say, a second tier Tom Cruise feature, indeed Kurylenko was in one, Oblivion) rather than more sophisticated Franco-Canadian audience expectations. Alas it hasn't really jibed with either, plus there is minimal character development. One cannot compete with Hollywood on the same basis (ie. special effects, budgets) so really needs these other elements. Sad to say, this also seems to apply to Romain Duris' career, which, while still starry in France, seems to me to suffer from lack of good material rather than lack of talent.