Mark Reviews Movies: SLALOM

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Review by Mark Dujsik | April 8, 2021

Since she was a child, Lyz Lopez (Noée Abita) has had a passion for skiing. Her mother doesn't understand it. Her father is basically absent from Lyz's life. The only person who seems to truly understand Lyz's drive is her new coach. He was once a professional skier, but a series of injuries ended his career.

This relationship, between a young athlete and her coach, is the focus of Slalom, writer/director Charlène Favier's debut feature. At the start, Fred (Jérémie Renier), the coach, pushes Lyz in ways she has never known. He treats her as any other skier on her new school's team. He scolds her, belittles her, mocks her, and sets her apart from the rest of the team, apparently just to further put her down. Fred seems like a tough and ruthless coach, using negative reinforcement as a way to get the best out of his athletes and eliminate those who can't make it. There is, after all, the possibility that any of these skiers could qualify for the Olympics if they prove themselves in the coming season.

In other words, Fred begins this story as a kind of broad and familiar archetype, just as Favier's film starts as a seemingly routine sports story. The young and inexperienced skier will be pushed by this new coach, likely improve in her skills, show what she can do, and excel her way toward victory after victory. That story does unfold here, but Favier's aims are founded upon what happens in between the competitions.

It's a much darker tale, one that examines, not only the relationship between these two characters, but also the distinct imbalance of power between them. After years and decades of stories about characters like Fred, we've been trained, perhaps, to see his attitude, general behavior, and specific actions as nothing out of the ordinary. Favier, though, doesn't see it that way, and as her camera lingers on Fred's hand touching Lyz's leg or the coach making his 15-year-old athlete strip to her underwear to weigh her while they're alone in his office, we can intuitively sense that this relationship, at least in the coach's eyes, has little to do with skiing. It's all about power.

Favier's film, then, becomes a study about the increasing abuse of that power—how it begins with such accepted behavior (Whether or not we should accept such actions within this or similar contexts becomes a key question worth examining further, beyond the confines of the film itself) and incrementally escalates, until the abuse is undeniable in any social or legal context. It maintains Lyz's perspective the entire time, and Favier is insightful and compassionate in showing how the character falls prey to this predator, without blaming her or making Lyz into a powerless victim.

Lyz has recently transferred to this school, which specializes in trainer skiers. Her mother (played by Muriel Combeau) has taken a new job out of town, meaning Lyz lives and goes through all of the pressures of training, competing, and what happens between those things by herself. There's little at the start to suggest what Fred will do, save for the constant insults and those touches, but none of the other young skiers, including Lyz's friend Justine (Maïra Schmitt), or even Fred's live-in girlfriend Lilou (Marie Denarnaud) thinks there's anything strange or wrong about this behavior.

As Lyz's technique improves and she begins dominating the various races, things becomes more uncomfortable. Fred walks in on Lyz while she's in the shower (still dressed in a swimsuit) to have a conversation about her period. He takes her out for meals. Almost all of the tough talk and rough attitude disappear from his vocabulary and his tone.

Lyz is special, as a skier and to Fred. That's why he pushed her. That's why he pays extra attention to her. That's why she'll keep winning and he'll never give up on her.

That's what the coach says, at least, and once Fred makes his intentions clear (in a particularly upsetting scene in a van), we can see how all of this—each of the steps in the way the coach has talked to and acted toward Lyz—has led to that moment of overt abuse. He saw her, alone and uncertain, and knocked down her confidence, only to raise it based solely upon his praise. He saw no parental or authority figure in Lyz's life, so he stepped into that role, only to betray it for his own ends. He kept testing how she and others would react, and when there is nothing or no one to stop him, the coach strikes.

Lyz is a child in many ways, which isn't intended to demean to her, and fully knowing, competent, and independent in other, which isn't meant to excuse the coach in any way. The film sees and Abita's performance portrays the character as she is—a smart and talented but unsure and lonely teenager. In staying so close to Lyz throughout the entirety of the film, Favier presents the character as more than a statistic, an archetype, a target, a victim, or anything that reduces her and what she experiences to an idea.

There are ideas in Slalom about power and abuse and specific policies about how such things could, can, and do happen, but Favier never loses sight of this as a specific, personal story. It's a painful one, for sure, but in its depiction of creeping abuse and its ultimate move toward regaining power over one's own life, the film feels crucial, too.

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