An Urban Allegory (Allégorie citadine, 2024, France, 21’), the second collaboration between Alice Rohrwacher and the French photographer and street artist JR, which premiered at La Biennale di Venezia, explores the meaning of both life and art through a contemporary interpretation of Plato’s allegory of the cave. Representing a potential Act III of JR’s Retour à la Caverne – a two-act project excavating the origins of art harking back to cave art – the film, set in contemporary Paris, borrows both the performance and the music sequences from the opera Chiroptera (Act II) to prompt us to see cinema anew as an illusion-making machine. Jay (Naïm El Kaldaoui), a boy who by mere coincidence finds himself at his mother’s (Lyna Khoudri) ballet audition, is the first one to find out the truth, whispered to him by the ballet’s director, played in a convincing meta-twist by Leos Carax. Now he who knows the way to break the illusion and escape the chains which keep us away from reality, asks us a question: Would any of you believe me? For Plato, the answer is a definite No. However, for this little gem that is a synthesis of Rohrwacher’s and JR’s hopeful visions, it is an unquestionable Yes. Their cave holds its own truth: collectivity and humanity are the only way to liberty.

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Allégorie Citadine Still © 2024 – AD VITAM FILMS – SOCIAL ANIMALS – ARTE FRANCE CINEMA