VULTURES

Samuel, a journalist, and his daughter Ava, who is accompanying him on an internship, investigate the brutal acid murder of a young woman. Samuel discovers disturbing similarities with a previous case and embarks on an independent investigation, exploring the violence of femicides and the role of journalism in reporting them. The film highlights the perspective of investigative journalists and addresses themes such as hatred of women, societal violence, and the impact of trauma 

• Loosely based on true events, Dourountzis manages to distill an oppressive atmosphere from them. His direction is spare, without frills. A key scene in a restaurant—in which violence is depicted entirely through sound—especially demonstrates his mastery of suggestion. This is cinema that chooses silence over sensation and therefore hits all the harder. (…)  Rapaces is a crime drama with a clear mission: to expose the silent complicity of the press, politicians, and police in cases of sexist violence. This societal urgency is palpable and at times confronting.
  (Fast forward) 

• With its gallery of tasty secondary characters (…)The film paints the portrait of a newsroom dedicated to a work done with the utmost seriousness in a visceral respect for the truth. … Rapaces flushes out the suspicion of omnipresent male violence everywhere, making fear one of the markers of women’s living conditions.
  Translated from Le Monde article with the help of Collins Translator 

• The director skillfully unfolds his chronicle of the collective of a small editorial team (Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Valérie Donzelli, Stefan Crepon, all perfect) in search of scoops, from the offices of the police directorate to the gloomy home of a “cannibal”. Then he masterfully tightens it up on an increasingly implacable face-to-face between two characters, Samuel and his daughter — Bouajila, therefore, very Al Pacino, and a decidedly talented Mallory Wanecque (…) With, as a highlight, sequences of anguish in a restaurant, then a car chase that would give Alfred Hitchcock himself cold sweats…
  Translated from Télérama article with the help of Collins Translator