Les Conquérants (2013)
Directed by Xabi Molia

Film Review

Xabi Molia's follow-up to his well-received debut feature 8 fois debout (2010) offers another improbable mélange of genres which miraculously gel into a satisfying and thoughtful contemplation on life in the 21st century.  Part road movie, part social comedy, part quest adventure, with more than a soupçon of old fashioned fairytale, Les Conquérants presents a weird variation on the search for the Holy Grail myth which cannot help looking like an everyman remix of Raiders of the Lost Ark.  In place of Harrison Ford, we have an unlikely duo formed by Denis Podalydès and Mathieu Demy, who make a surprisingly effective combination as two estranged half-brothers for whom a wacky adventure with a stone goblet is just a pretext for an arduous process of self-discovery and renewal.

Like Molia's first feature, this sophomore offering deals with some serious and highly pertinent themes in a gently offbeat and light-hearted manner.  There are some bizarre, even surreal, digressions along the way (the comic highpoint is a disastrous heist which propels us into comicbook territory, and a flying horse shows up for some reason at one point), but Les Conquérants never loses sight of the painful realities of modern life which impinge on the two protagonists - the difficulty in forming meaningful relationships, the precarious nature of a career in the sporting or artistic arena, coping with life-threatening illnesses, and so on.

It is presumably a lack of spiritual backbone, not gullibility, that leads the two brothers to believe they are cursed by an ancient artefact, but it is by going to absurd lengths to exorcise the curse (in Demy's case this includes fending off a gigantic bear, cuddling up naked with a sheep and potholing in red shorts) that they accomplish a timely spiritual healing.  Again, man's relationship with the natural world is central to Molia's anti-materialistic thesis (cue some stunning location photography in the Basque country), and the film concludes in a similar vein to 8 fois debout, asserting that it is only through a harmonious union with nature that a human being can be at one with himself and the world around him.  Although it occasionally betrays signs of borderline insanity, Les Conquérants is an intensely likeable genre pick'n' mix that provides a cogent parable for our times.

Film Synopsis

Galaad and Noé have nothing in common except that they share the same father and seem destined to fail at everything they attempt, in both their professional and personal lives.  The first they get to hear of each other's existence is when they meet at their father's funeral.  Galaad is the most pathetic of the two.  A failed actor, his wife has recently walked out on him and he is now suffering from a second attack of lymphoma.  Noé's personal history is hardly any better.  A football coach with a horrible moralising tendency, his career has been about as noteworthy as that of a stillborn slug.  Two more miserable specimens of humanity it is hard to imagine.

Archetypal losers of the first rank, the two men are at a complete loss to account for the misfortunes that have blighted their lives, but a possible explanation suddenly comes to them.  It is all down to an ancient relic that their father found in a cave deep in the Pyrenees!  This mysterious object obviously once had some religious significance, so it is not so implausible that it should be the cause of all their problems.  Galaad and Noé realise that there is only way they can bring an end to their unending cycle of bad luck.  This is to steal the relic, a sacred stone goblet, and return it to its rightful underground resting place.  Getting their hands on the cursed artefact proves to be enough of an ordeal.  Putting it back where it belongs is one adventure that the brothers are far from equipped to deal with...