Avis des critiques

Hue works closely with Yeniche nonprofessionals to create a sense of raw textures and whirlwind urges, an immersion into a milieu not unlike one of Tony Gatlif's Roma shivarees but with its own undertow of danger. The mixture of improvised naturalism and hotheaded suspense is not always successful, but, in such evocative moments as a climactic dissolve from a racer's windshield to the inside of an evangelical tent, Eat Your Bones attains a potent balance of its conflicting drives.

Hue is indeed interested in authenticity. Eat Your Bones is awash in in-speak and argot, and the ball-busting cameraderie displayed here can't be easily faked. But there's an observational attitude that just as frequently fixates on white and blue light piercing a black night of swirling image grain.

Hue is good at giving the night the ebb-and-flow that comes with increasing/diminishing amounts of alcohol in the bloodstream. That means, attendantly, varying amount of narrative engagement, but there's a final car chase that skirts Michael Mann terrain for its exploitation of nighttime digital sheen — blue light, the fast blur of cars and so on

A bit simple, yes, and perhaps somewhat posturing, using, with respectful collaboration, the aura of the Yeniche to power and to a degree mythologize and estrange a straight-forward genre path. Still, the images often arrest, vividly, and these young men impress, their presence as potent as that of the elder's beloved Alpina racer... Not perfect, but certainly a dusky gem of a film.

Reminiscent of Bruno Dumont's The Life of Jesus in both its setting and cast of colorful (and colorfully looking) locals, but sticking closer to genre conventions while offering up moments of reckless fun, this third feature from writer-director Jean-Charles Hue (The Lord's Ride) meanders too much in its documentary-style first act before hitting the right stride in its action-packed final stretch.