Showing up, Our Ceremonies, Guardians of the Galaxy 3… Films to see or avoid this week

Drame de Kelly Reichardt, 1h48

Bob hair, long skirt, floral blouse, mules or crocs on her feet, gray socks... Michelle Williams looks like a sad little girl or a Japanese fashionista, which comes to the same thing. Or even a mouse. However, she has a cat, her only companion in her small house in Portland. Before having to collect a pigeon, injured in a wing. A waste of time and money (150 vet dollars). In Showing up, the American director observes these funny zebras that are the artists. Lizzie is a sculptor. The works, created by Cynthia Lathi, essentially depict women in awkward postures. She is a few weeks away from the opening of her exhibition. To pay her rent and the cat's food, she works in an art school. His mother is his employer and is reluctant to give him a day off. His neighbor, Jo (Hong Chau), is also his owner. Lizzie asks him in vain to have his boiler repaired. She can no longer wash herself in cold water. The two women are friends and rivals. Jo is a visual artist, also about to exhibit. The spirit of competition also exists among artists. Showing up is an empathic satire of an arty bohemian community, with its workshops, its vanities, its ridiculousness. Kelly Reichardt laughs, but never in a sneering way, never in overhang. She does not hide from belonging to this world, that of creators, whether brilliant or pathetic. E. S.

Fantasy drama by Simon Rieth, 1h44

Two children, two brothers, are happily teasing each other on the beach at Royan. The sound of the waves bathes their sunny days in a familiar crash. Tony and Noah run on the rocks, provoke each other to laugh. Their complicity is as fusional as it is aggressive. At the top of a cliff, they challenge each other. Who runs the fastest towards the void, before stopping at the last moment? These children's games are sure to go wrong... But, like a magician who diverts the attention of the spectators to better prepare his turn, the young director Simon Rieth uses the announced drama to conceal another narrative path, quite unexpected, more original. This is why Our Ceremonies, selected by Critics' Week in Cannes last year, is a first film that hides its game well. After a twelve-year ellipse, we find the two brothers, back in Royan for a funeral. Noah and Tony have grown into two young adults, one of whom is now bald, suffering from alopecia. On the beach, seductive and accomplices, the two brothers are quick to seduce young girls who invite them to go out clubbing. Rieth paints a realistic portrait of today's youth. We are far from pancakes with Nuts, yellow breakfast bowls, or childhood memories linked to this seaside resort filmed like that of Spielberg's Jaws. Little Cassandra (Maïra Villena), in love with big brother Tony, has also grown up. Between a walk under the pines, a nap crushed by heat on a pontoon, very slowly, a love triangle is set up. The filmmaker shrouds his film in sensuality, but he adds a halo of mystery and fantasy. Because at the heart of this singular, promising and stylish first feature film, which sometimes recalls the Boukherma brothers' Teddy, Simon Rieth has installed a secret in the form of a curse. Despite their rivalry, the brothers are inseparable, real Siamese prisoners of terrible ceremonies, which rush them to the edge of the supernatural. O.D.

Drama by Laura Citarella, 2h09

Laura Citarella belongs to the El Pampero Cine collective, which shakes up the codes of the Argentine seventh art. There is a tone. There is an atmosphere. Divided into two parts, constructed in twelve chapters, the film tells the story of a disappearance. Laura passed out in the wild. What happened to this botanical specialist in charge of cataloging the plants of the region? The last time we heard from him was near Trenque Lauquen, south of Buenos Aires. Helped by a bearded friend, her lover goes looking for her. He is not at the end of his troubles. The poor guy wastes his days knocking on doors, showing a photo to strangers who shake their heads. The plot soon doubles as an investigation into love letters hidden between the pages of a book called Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Woman. There they are, like chilled detectives, going through the volumes of the local library, putting together the pieces of a romance that took place in 1962. Who were this Carmen Zuna and this Paolo? We will check little by little that the mystery has lost none of its charm, nor the pampa of its brilliance. The stories fit together gently, like Russian dolls. In the second half, the scenario switches to a fantastic hushed, the air of not touching it. You have to drown in this tree structure, rock this narration in freedom. Humor sprinkles this fable populated by secret societies, paranormal phenomena, between romance and thriller. Laura Citarella thinks everything is allowed. She's right. Before his eyes, everything becomes cinema. Change of scenery guaranteed. E. NOT.

Documentary by Stéphane Malterre and Garance Le Caisne, 1h39

The efforts, the doubts and the pains of those who, helped by French or Spanish lawyers, sought to know the fate of their loved ones held in the jails of Bashar el-Assad. Several tens of thousands of people have disappeared there since 2011, assures this film as poignant as it is enlightening. B.P.

Action movie by James Gunn, 2h30

House Marvel's most flippant gang throws themselves into one last adventure. Save the universe? Already done and redone. Star Lord's (Chris Pratt) gang flies to the rescue this time around good fellow raccoon, Rocket (Bradley Cooper). Chef of the first parts, James Gunn enhances his hackneyed recipe with spices potted in the 90s. There is Radiohead on the menu, Luc Besson in ambush. "Junk Food" for amateurs only. S.C.

Drama by Eve Duchemin, 1h58

Three prisoners are released from prison for a weekend. Two days in the open air to reconnect with loved ones and try to make up for lost time... For her first film, screenwriter-director Eve Duchemin plunges her camera into the heart of the concentration camp universe. The feature film, realistic, social, quasi-documentary, works like a sketch film, alternating the three stories, without making them intersect. Another peculiarity, the viewer will never know what these leavers belonging to three different generations may have done wrong, even if we end up guessing it. Jarod Cousyns and Karim Leklou are perfect in their respective roles, but it's veteran actor Isaka Sawadogo who wins the piece. The whole is coherent, well done, but we are still unsatisfied... O. D.

Drama by Cédric Ido, 1h26

Another suburban film, but with a little more ambition than the average. Two brothers (one athletics champion, the other in a wheelchair) and their boyfriend just released from prison want to get their hands on the drug trade monopolized by a gang of young people. Despite slow motions and flashbacks, the film leaves no one indifferent and even slides towards science fiction. E. NOT.