BERLIN – Wading through festival lineups these days, it’s tempting to conclude that the real tragedy of the self-defined lost generation is that they can’t stop making movies about youthful anomie. The fundaments of storytelling frequently come a distant second to the creation of mood and atmosphere, conveying inarticulate feelings of nihilistic anger or romanticized despair. Leaning in the latter direction, Héléna Klotz’s Atomic Age (L’Age Atomique) is thematically familiar yet also striking, its stylistic control and haunting imagery making it stand out from the pack...
...Visually and aurally, the film casts a spell. Cinematographer Héléne Louvart finds other-worldly dimensions in shadow, light and blanketing darkness, while capturing moments of both poseur affectation and pensive introspection in the characters’ faces. Most impressive is the fugue-like synthesizer score by the director’s brother Ulysse Klotz, which blends Gothic electronica with pounding techno beats in the club scenes, ultimately building into a magnificent requiem that swells organically out of the closing images of the forest.
