This French production was conducted with a tense cadence and the atmosphere was created was very sophisticated: the soundtrack, the cinematography, the plot development, the performance of the main couple, everything was orchestrated to drown the spectator in this controversial history. Frankly, Kirill Emelyanov was a great surprise! I got a little worried about certain issues in this movie, mainly the elitism that was the choice of privilege the view of Daniel (a successful man with economic power and that, in some way, dominates and subjugate Marek) about the events. This choice, if not looked critically, may seems like a xenophobic Manicheism (Daniel = the man who "salves" Marek from the degeneration/ Boss = the bad guy that preclude the "happiness of the lovers"). But, on the other hand, if we analyze the film without being get stuck by this romantic bourgeois superficiality, the movie can be very rich, extremely delicate and complex, because it allows to the spectator have several reflections about the issues of immigration, oppression and all the problematics the main relationship covers (precisely for the way it was conducted). The movie puts the spectator in a dilemma: the immediate impression is that the picture is about a fair and emancipator love story of an honorable middle-class man and a lost boy with no future. But, if we were not hurried, complicated issues arises: Daniel was egoist, he used from your supposed love (or caprice?) and from his power of French citizen to get what he wanted (his beautiful, young, mysterious and economically and emotionally fragile lad) and he didn't give a f**k for the other immigrants. What was at stake to Daniel was get back his young lover, but for the immigrants, what was at stake was something far more tragic and cruel, things which their lives and survival depended of. So, Eastern Boys can be read as a dark portrait of oppression and exploration from the French people to the immigrants. For me, Daniel "tamed" Marek so he could be inserted in a petty-bourgeois and imperialist lifestyle almost like a catechizing. Maybe, more than showing his love to Marek, with the end of the picture, Daniel showed him his power and became Marek a "good boy", dependent and subjugated to this power of his in order to Marek no longer be a "marginal" who "terrifies" the good French citizens. I though, even, this ending very gloomy, however, that's exactly why I thought it provocative and instigating.
Review of Eastern Boys
