Storm by Romain Gavras
Storm by Romain Gavras considers youth and masculinity in the high school setting, set to an electronic soundtrack by Gener8tion. Unlike typical cinematic depictions of high school life, Gavras paints an unsettling picture of a school wrought with violence, a grim reality for many in education systems across the world. Adding to his remarkably hypnotic direction are star and celebrated rapper Yung Lean, who plays the distressed ‘head boy,’ and Damien Jalet, whose gripping choreography underscores the short film’s themes through intense synchronization.
Acclaimed choreographer Damien Jalet designed the breathtaking, synchronized group performance.
GFA’s Field Notes
No dialogue, seven and a half minutes, and it captures something true about where masculinity sits right now: fragile, contested, not settled into any one definition. The film's first half shows a rigid, aggressive version of masculinity enforcing itself through violence and dominance, boys claiming an old, hard shape of what a man is supposed to be. Then, without warning, it breaks into three unbroken minutes of choreography, and that same aggression softens into something collective and fluid, closer to dance than to fighting. The shift doesn't resolve the tension so much as sit inside it. Masculinity today is being pushed and questioned from every direction, some are fighting hard to keep hold of its older, harder definition, while others haven't yet pushed hard enough toward something more flexible, more open. "Storm" doesn't pick a side. It just shows both forces moving through the same body, at the same time, unresolved.
