Theo, 14 ans rêve. Guidé par Mikael, un manadier chez qui il travaille jusqu’à la rentrée scolaire Théo fait l’apprentissage de la vie et du travail des champs. Durant ce court été, Théo va mettre à l’épreuve ces rêves et faire face à la bête.

Théo is 14 years old and dreams of becoming a ‘manadier’ (having a herd of bulls and cows). Learning under the supervision of Mickaël, he spends the summer on a bull farm. This film bathed in Southern light is the first co-directed film by Emma Benestan and Adrien Lecouturier, who continue to explorer the territory of adolescence. The result of an encounter with Théo during an artist’s residence in a local school, Facing the Beast draws the delicate portrait of a teenager who is as withdrawn as he is enthusiastic, and, on the threshold of adulthood, is facing his fears in the shadow of a not so reassuring paternal figure. With a certain mastery and at the right distance, the film swings between the world of childhood and that of adults: learning a trade, proving one’s virility, being a man—at the risk of being gored. In a beautiful sequence in dusky hues, the childish games of cat and mouse are transformed in the bullring into a harsher combat, a training session that starts to look like a rite of passage. At the end of the summer, who knows, perhaps the life-saving dodge will not be the one we thought.
(Céline Guénot)