mikelpwpamplona

'(Little) Red Riding Hood' all over the world, including Spain, last year, filmmaker Stephane Guenin has presented his feature film 'L'Engagement 1.0' in Paris, where suspense and espionage come together with highly topical political issues. He is currently on a French tour, before making the leap to other European countries.

The film tells the story of a lawyer who is detained by the French secret services with the aim of revealing his relationship with a terrorist group. Through flashbacks and intense interrogation, the viewer must discover what each of the characters is hiding before reaching a violent final confrontation.

Guenin , a lawyer by profession before making the leap to film, explains that "the idea for the story came to mind when he was completing his doctorate in law, in collaboration with the CTU units ( Counter Terrorism French Units , in 1994". He first wrote a script in 2005, which was a "big-budget" film, so in October 2012 he developed "a prequel with a much smaller budget." In January 2013 he made the decision to focus on this second project since, as he explains, "it was time to move forward in the story" to prevent it from continuing in a drawer and the best way to do it was this prequel inspired by real events. That he knew from his training. In this way, he reduced filming times and focused the main scenes on 11 days, which were not easy to carry out since the temperature reached -15ºC.

Guenin as producer is responsible for EuroPacific Films, the main production company that finances 'L'Engagement 1.0'. Although he is not alone in this task, since it is an international co-production between the United States, France, Hungary and India. The team carried out a thorough search for locations and managed to film in the Madeleine church (Paris), becoming the first film to be shot there.

Filmmaker Stéphane Guenin premieres 'Hard Kills' , an intelligent and risky proposal that follows in the wake of previous works by the French creator such as 'L'engagement 1.0' or '(Little) Red Riding Hood' , a work that was applauded and awarded internationally, including a premiere in the Navarra Fantasy and Horror Film Festival.

Returning to the work at hand today, 'Hard Kills' . Guenin presents us with an unusual thriller today, which starts from the traumatic personal story of a serial killer to gradually delve into a commercial war between pharmaceutical mafias. The film maintains interest throughout the film, adding intelligent twists and reflections that make us perfectly understand the essence that moves the various protagonists, as well as the ties that unite them.

The viewer can enjoy the changes in tone, traveling from the surprises of the most Hitchcockian suspense to a cruel black comedy. There is in it a magic very typical of cinema that is rarely explored and that perhaps since 'Vivement dimanche!', by François Truffaut, we have not been able to enjoy in such a complete way.

If we can highlight something about 'Hard Kills', it is that, by taking unexpected paths without artifices or superficial tricks, it also manages to raise high-level moral debates, avoiding banal discourses. Guenin has been able to find in this story of chance encounters the best possible way to analyze the past and the traumas that move its protagonists, who enter increasingly murky worlds.

In short, we are faced with a practically perfect narrative that moves in many directions without losing sight of its commitment to reality. This film honestly approaches the essence of chaos and contemporary social problems. Without a doubt, here we have one of the best examples of current French cinema and a director that we should follow very closely.