A lot has been discussed in recent years about the representatives of Generation Y, who were born between 1981 and 1995-at a time when the problems of the world that were long ignored by the predecessor generations were gradually unmistakable. “What should you live for if the climate catastrophe threatens soon?”, Many Millennials are wondering – and often only harvested from older semesters.
Léonor Serraille was the breakthrough with her debut “Bonjour Paris”, a kind of French answer to “Frances Ha”. Now she tells – born in 1986 and thus itself millennial – in her third feature film “Ari“Again a kind of slacker story and thus in calm, careful pictures at the same time of the actually or even imagined problems of their generation. The result is sometimes a little too gently, you won't find any corners and edges in vain – but in the end you may be happy with the main character that was lost at the beginning that it has found a certain degree of courage to live again.
Not exactly suitable for fundamental shoulders
To want to bring the essence of the seahorses close to a primary school class and to tell about the Second World War, opium and sexual deviations, seems strange. No wonder, because the six-year-old teacher is Ari (Andranic Manet), a soft, oversensis 27-year-old man who threatens to despair. After his strange appearance in the class, he is on sick leave for two months – for his single father of the drops, who finally overflow the barrel.
He throws Ari out. He then finds shelter at various acquaintances, sometimes finds a lesbian couple, then with a wealthy childhood friend, finally with a buddy from similar social conditions. A loose round of guys unfolds – different representatives of generation Y, who fight with themselves, life and a world that has apparently fallen out of joint in one way or another …
Is ARI (Andranic Manet) in a way that is in line with life – or just too sensitive to his environment?
Léonor Serraille developed “Ari” as part of a workshop at the Academy for Dramatic Art in Paris together with people of this age. She spoke to a number of young actors, listened to her concerns and fears and developed a film from these conversations that follows only one loose structure. Gradually, the protagonist pours out his heart from various friends and acquaintances, for which he sometimes contested.
Who is reminiscent of Louis Malles “The Irright”, not only can be proud of his film -historical knowledge, but is also right: the film about a suicide, which was created in 1963, who meets all his friends again on the day of his death to decide, Serraille describes whether life may not have a meaning as a dedicated inspiration for “ARI”.
A gentle release into the future
But while there is actually a suicide in the French classic, Serraille chooses a more open, optimistic end. As crying and unable to life, his friends may seem to work, Ari slowly begins to see a meaning in the course of his encounters. Maybe it is the many children he meets in the course of the film? Including his own daughter, from whom he only experiences years after her birth, which at the end shows him in the end of this loose generation portrait, for which it is worth living for.
Conclusion: Loose structured portrait of Generation Y, which asks for reasons for living in the face of gnawing global and personal problems – and finds a surprisingly conciliatory answer.
We saw “Ari” as part of the Berlinale 2025, where it was shown as part of the official competition.