It is a film that embodies the story of some young people, who are tired of society and try to change course. It seems that these young people do not like the community in which they live, and so they decided to launch a bomb attack on Paris before they resorted to spending a night in a shopping center at those crucial moments.
The frivolity of the film's unexpressed political earnestness-Bonello's unwillingness to give voice to his or his characters' ideas-is matched by the emptiness of its aesthetic.
The film is a carefully constructed hall of mirrors within which Bonello shows us the horror of anger without empathy, and the state as the most terrifying player of all. It is a pitch black allegory for our time.
Testing the viewer's position on who or what the victims are here is partly what makes Nocturama such a horribly exhilarating and rewarding piece of cinema.
When the ruthless, faceless power of the state finally asserts itself, what is meant to be a shocking climax merits little more than a nod and a shrug.
Exquisite cinema. A sly siren, Nocturama is narcotic phase, slow-burn haze, a shifty, shifting thriller inspecting terrorism and youth. A bombing plot, a dance of death... Another distracted, neglected, maligned generation.
You may not think that a movie that asks you to understand terrorists is for you, but if you give Bonello 130 minutes of your time, he'll make you a believer.
Much like Bonello's previous film, "Yves Saint Laurent," "Nocturama" revels in pure experience. But the sum total of its gliding abstractions is a mite brainless.
