Valérie Mréjen and Bertrand Schefer's 'En Ville' Explores Urban Drift

The film 'En Ville' by Valérie Mréjen and Bertrand Schefer, released on DVD, examines contemporary urban stereotypes through two interlocking narratives. One follows Iris (Lola Creton), a nonchalant young woman on the verge of anxious apathy, breaking away from family circles including a grumpy father and a whining lover. The other traces an artist inspired by Antonioni's 'L'Eclisse', with Stanislas Merhar's impassive character analyzing the difficulty of reaching a city center through peripheral industrial zones. The film references Antonioni's pioneering depiction of emptiness and urban fabric dilation, but updates it fifty years later as characters seek 'sensorimotor connections' (a concept Deleuze described as broken in Antonioni's work). The originality lies in juxtaposing two foreign narratives, avoiding both clichés of adolescent uncertainty and disembodied conceptual projects. Dominique Païni notes that the film's beauty serves the intelligence of doubts and ambitions, adapting the Hollywood adage of making beautiful things with beautiful people.