After two James Bond and the incredible 1917, Sam Mendes is back to a more intimate, less ostentatious and especially much more sensitive cinema with Empire of Light. Led by Olivia Colman, Toby Jones and Colin Firth, the story takes place in 1980s England, dominated by racism and the rise of Thatcher politics. In the midst of these societal changes, viewers follow the tribulations of the employees of a small neighborhood cinema.
Empire of Light : a declaration of love to the seventh art?
A declaration of love in cinema, a rereading of a bygone era, a singular autofiction, so many qualifiers that critics and spectators attribute to works that are part of a new movement: the childhood rehabilitation of great directors by their own vision. A fashion that really launched in 2019 with Once upon a time… in Hollywood by Quentin Tarantino. Since then, all the great directors want to tell their childhood, hidden under a cloud of art, politics and "declaration of love to the seventh art". Belfast by Kenneth Branagh, Roma by Alfonso Cuaron, Licorize Pizza by Paul Thomas Anderson, Babylon by Damien Chazelle, Armageddon Time by James Gray or of course the recent The Fabelmans by Steven Spielberg, all rely on the same process: to tell an era, a childhood, and above all, to declare his love for the seventh art. With, obviously, more or less success… 
Empire of Light is therefore part of this lineage. Sam Mendes, like the others, wants to make his contribution to the building. Sam Mendes wants, like his colleagues, to bring to the screen his first memories of cinema, and stage his relationship with the seventh art. And not surprisingly, cinema is life! Sam Mendes thus signs a tribute work, carried by the unfailing talent of Olivia Colman, who shares, once again, a brilliant interpretation, radiant in its moments of happiness, terrifying in its phases of intense distress. In the skin of her character, suffering from a mental illness, she shines brightly, hallucinating with accuracy, as solar as heartbreaking. It is clearly the strong point of Empire of Light, and proves once again the extent of its acting abilities.
A sensitive film that paradoxically lacks emotion
If the will of Sam Mendes is obvious, offering a double social and artistic discourse, the realization unfortunately does not reach the power of some of his peers. Indeed, Sam Mendes locks himself in an artificial work, certainly extremely sensitive, but where the emotion never takes totally. The setting up of the film is however quite attractive. Sam Mendes perfectly sets the scene of this aging cinema, in the center of a graying seaside resort, vestiges of an era that is slowly fading. In an atmosphere sometimes reminiscent of Wes Anderson's cinema, Empire of Light offers a worn architecture, mirroring the emotional state of our protagonists in full sentimental disarray. Hilary (Olivia Colman) is sensitive to the skin, and is the representation of a world in perpetual evolution, which does not know in which direction to go, and which leaves some of its travelers on the sidelines. Unfortunately, the emotion never takes completely, especially because of the artificiality of the story. The reversals of situations are called, and some imagery of the film quickly falls into the cliché. Hard to believe this love story between Hilary and Stephen that occurs like a hair on the soup. A romantic representation of love in cinema, it is above all a clichéd situation that never seems credible. The same is true with the often clumsy, and overflown treatment of racism, like Stephen's mother, played by the talented Tanya Moodie, who is never really identified. So much so that when we see her again, we do not necessarily understand that it is the nurse crossed a few scenes earlier. Finally, Sam Mendes addresses tired considerations about how art can heal our wounds, pale copies of the recent Babylon, which already duplicated the huge Cinema Paradiso. https://youtu.be/fLtVq_P5zNM With Empire Of Light, Sam Mendes signs a sensitive film, but paradoxically lacking in emotion. He proposes a work that pays tribute to the 7th art as an escape, against a background of social and political romance. Except that the recipe does not take totally…
