Taking place in a specialist sports boarding school in France, Valery Carnoy’s Wild Foxes follows the lives of childhood best friends and aspirant boxers Camille (Sam Kircher) and Matteo (Faycal Anaflous). Camille, the academy’s star boxer, stands slightly apart from the group with a more watchful, inward presence, while Matteo, presents a more rowdy and restless energy.
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The story kicks in when Camille’s rise to greatness is halted by a near-fatal fall he suffers while in the woods with Matteo. This tense moment is flagged by a heartwrenching scream that comes while Camille is as he dangles on the edge of a cliff, and is only saved thanks to the interventions of his friend. Following the accident, there is a subtle tenderness between the way that Matteo cares for Camille. The star quickly heals from his physical injuries, even though he then begins to suffer from phantom pains and panic attacks which leave him traumatised. His future as a boxer is thrown into contention.
Kircher brings a sensitivity and tortured quality to Camille. His relationship with Yas (Anna Heckel), a taekwondo student, highlights his changing perspective regarding his injury and his realisations of who he truly is. He takes forest walks and admires the cooling breeze with Yas, who acts as a guiding figure and shows him another way of living. Contrasted to these scenes of tender growth are moments in which Camille attempts to appease his coach and friends by pushing through the phantom pain. He attempts to yell through his ailments, and in a moment event shuts his arm in a door in an attempt to quell the suffering, a moment which is evocatively lit in a dark red glow that adds to the tortured nature of his existential struggles.
As Camille shifts inward, the unspoken closeness of his friendship with Matteo starts to falter, and Carnoy traces the quiet heartbreak of outgrowing someone you once felt inseparable from. Naturalistic handheld camera work, with candid iphone shots of the boys in various parts of their life, transport the viewer into the internal changing lives of the characters. The film shows us the violent world that these boys inhabit and its competitive ruthless nature, but it also shows the love and tenderness that adolescent friends can feel for each other. It is these two opposing feelings that elevate Wild Foxes above being just another coming of age film.
Elsewhere the score by Pierre Desprats heightens the swelling sense of violence in key scenes. Music is also employed at moments of supreme tenderness. This constant duality of mood and theme is also represented in the changing rhythms of the film. Some scenes are deeply dreamy and slow, with long lingering shots, mirroring Camille’s sensitivity and more pensive nature. However there are many intensely violent scenes, with quick editing and short shots that indicate the turbulent nature lurking within.
There’s a real delicacy to the way Carnoy handles this world, never reducing it to simple notions about masculinity or growing up. The film moves between harshness and softness, between moments of real cruelty and something much more tender. It’s that balance that makes it work.