Eastern Boys (Robin Campillo, 2013): France

Reviewed by Simon Rosen. Viewed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival 2014

Eastern Boys has it all, it has the most uncomfortable scenes I have seen under the festival but at the same time it has emotional, weird and confusing scenes that all build towards the story and the work of the director Robin Campillo.

Eastern Boys is film that starts off at Garde du Nord, Paris, France, there we see a gang of people from all parts of Eastern Europe just cruise around the station. Later we see our main character a middle aged Frenchman Daniel, he then approach one of the eastern boys called Marek, they arrange a meet at Daniel’s apartment and from there the film just goes its own way.

Eastern Boys is divided in chapters and every chapter brings their own element to the film, the first chapter is with no dialog and as a viewer you don’t understand much, it ends with Daniel and Marek arranging a meet in Daniel’s apartment. The second chapter feels like an music video, it starts off with a 14-year old boy knocking on Daniel’s door saying that he is Marek, the boy runs in and starts treating Daniel saying that having sex with a minor is illegal and it’s not right. While this boy is talking you see the gang of eastern people flooding into Daniel’s apartment doing whatever they like, they start throwing a party and starts stealing everything in the apartment. While they are doing this our main character does nothing he just parties with them.

The first two chapters of Eastern Boys made me as a viewer trapped in wanting to see more, I do not think that this movie is one of the best in the festival, I just think that the cinematography and the way the movie was made was way different than what I’ve seen in a while. With an intriguing story and a impressive acting that makes the films so much better by Olivier Rabourdin (Daniel), Kirill Emelyanov (Marek) and Daniil Vorobyov (Boss).

I recommend anyone to see this movie but be prepared, some scenes might be confusing, disturbing and uncomfortable but it also have strong emotional, happy and scary scenes. I saw Eastern Boys because the other viewing of another film was full, do I regret watching Eastern Boys? No, I don’t. I’m glad that I saw this film because I really did enjoy watching this movie.