Bang Gang (A Modern Love Story) review: Eva Husson delivers a well directed, well presented, and sure to be much talked about debut feature.
Bang Gang (A Modern Love Story) plays in the First Feature Competition at this year’s BFI London Film Festival. Originating from France, first-time director and screenwriter Eva Husson delivers an almost unofficial, updated version of Larry Clark’s infamous 1990s movie Kids, with added elements from the YouTube and social media generation.
Featuring a cast of newcomers, the film revolves around a group of school kids who invent their own ‘orgy club,’ known as the Bang Gang. The kids unite in the home of Alex, whose parents are away in northern Africa on an archaeological expedition. When they come together, they start off by drinking, taking drugs and partaking in a game of truth or dare, albeit without the truth part. The teenagers awaken their sexuality, and over the coming weeks swap partners and partake in all sorts of liberating, sexual antics, without necessarily thinking about any kind of consequence for their actions.
Husson’s film is really well put together. Featuring a brilliant electro soundtrack, breathtaking cinematography and a real rawness to it, it doesn’t shy away from any taboos from the off. It doesn’t pull any punches either in terms of what we see on screen, and actually some scenes are really quite explicit in their nature. It’s captivating, deeply moving in places, as well funny, and really well performed by its group of young actors, who fearlessly embark on a really quite brave debut journey. Some of them, particularly the two young actresses, Marilyn Lima and Daisy Bloom, who lead this picture, are definitely names to look out for in the future; as too is Husson, who has delivered a well directed, well presented, and sure to be much talked about debut feature, even if the final reel falls a little flat.
Bang Gang (A Modern Love Story) review by Paul Heath at the BFI London Film Festival, 2015.
Bang Gang (A Modern Love Story) plays on 8th October, 2015, at the 2015 BFI London Film Festival.
