A grimly hypnotic desperation drives DISCO BOY, Giacomo Abbruzzese’s feature film debut. First there is Aleksei (Franz Rogowski), a young Belarusian who has crossed into France illegally and lost his companion along the way. With no other option, he joins the French Foreign Legion—the one route where his lack of papers will not get in the way of eventual naturalisation. Second and parallel, Jomo (Morr Ndiaye) and his sister Udoka (Laetitia Ky)—two young Nigerians—are central to guerrilla efforts in the Niger Delta to disrupt a multinational industrial development site which is polluting the river and their home. After Jomo and his comrades capture French nationals working on the development, the two paths are set for collision.

DISCO BOY was developed following Abbruzzese’s encounter with a dancer who had been a soldier and the man’s observations of the similar ways he used his body in both roles. Comparisons to Claire Denis’ Foreign Legion-set masterpiece BEAU TRAVAIL may be inevitable in the film’s topic, themes, and closing scene; there are also elements of a Heart of Darkness narrative whereby the coloniser’s moral rot exacts the highest toll and drives the central tragedy. DISCO BOY however treads its own path through the gorgeous complexity and physicality of Rogowski’s and Ndiaye’s central performances and the almost-hallucinatory unreality with which Abbruzzese imbues their desperate existences.

While there might not be especially new ground covered in a narrative capturing the fragmenting psyches of the colonisers and the colonised […] DISCO BOY is a stunning new entry into the canon.

Rogowski has rocketed to indie darling status after varied, daring roles in Christian Petzold’s TRANSIT and UNDINE, Terrence Malick’s GREAT FREEDOM, Sebastian Meise’s A HIDDEN LIFE, and most recently Ira Sachs’ PASSAGES. Here, he combines nerves of steel with a volatile vulnerability, contorting mind and body to be who he needs to be in the moment until the price that must be paid is too strong to disguise by even the most chameleonic survivors. Ndiaye currently has one credit to his name but one hopes to see more of his gravitas on screen soon. Jomo’s charisma is grounded in the knowledge that his war is righteous: a compelling foil to Aleksei’s rootlessness.

Abbruzzese melds naturalistic scenes—such as Aleksei’s initial flight, underscored only by noises of vehicles and rivers—with more dreamlike sequences as his mental state deteriorates. An especially horrifying night vision sequence captures the confusion and threat of the battlefield, and a bravura final sequence imagines alternate, perhaps better, freedoms and futures for Aleksei and Udoka. At points, Udoka feels somewhat of a cipher—someone to represent her brother’s cause and Aleksei’s guilt—but Ky’s mesmeric performance is another star-maker.

While there might not be especially new ground covered in a narrative capturing the fragmenting psyches of the colonisers and the colonised, or the precarity of “illegal” immigration and whose lives are prioritised, DISCO BOY is a stunning new entry into the canon. In his awareness of silences and his own form, Rogowski once again proves himself as one of the most captivating and heartbreaking actors working today.