The world of Drifting Laurent, the sophomore feature by directors Anton Balekdjian, Léo Couture, and Mattéo Eustachon, is not too dissimilar from that of Alain Guiardie’s Misericordia from earlier this year. Both films contemplate the nebulous desires of a sexually fluid drifter who turns up in a small, sparsely populated town filled with quirky characters and beset on all sides by tenuous interpersonal relationships. Each, too, is fascinated by the empty spaces of nature, and of the possibilities of discovery in a place that at once represents a fresh start and carries the burden of history. Laurent’s (Baptise Perusant) slippery identity doesn’t portend dark events in the same way the protagonist of Guarardie’s film does, but his lean, handsome face and charmingly awkward demeanor means he is both an unremarkable presence in his often indifferent surroundings, and perfectly suited to the social and romantic pursuits he’ll undertake over the next few months. 

If anything, Laurent’s relative innocence makes him alluring. Like the prized magical goat — said to produce milk all year long regardless of pregnancy — that a local farmer has tragically lost, he’s an exotic quantity, an oddity amongst a community of hard-nosed cynics. Laurent falls in with Sophia (Beatrice Dalle) and Santiago (Thomas Daloz), a mother and Viking-obsessed son who live full-time in the ski town. He ends up staying with them for a longer than expected when the irrepressible tug of the job market beckons his fair-weather friends to distant shores. The trio’s relationship is sweeter and more complicated than any other Laurent forms during the film. At one point, Laurent sleeps with Sophia, much to the dismay of the regressive, incel-lite Santiago. It’s difficult to tell whether Laurent’s good-spirited accommodation of Santiago’s childlike impulses, like screaming “for Valhalla” to the sky and building virtual colonies on a Google Maps-like interface, is meant to preempt or make up for his affair with Sophia.

Laurent’s pursuit of new social and romantic relationships is founded upon an unspoken desire for community. On his first night, he discovers an old woman, Lola, sitting in the freezing cold in her nightgown, an attempt on her part to kill herself. “I’m fed up,” she tells Laurent after he tucks her into bed. Alone in a lonely town, we’ll soon sympathize with Lola’s state of mind. Laurent also meets and starts a romantic fling with Farés, a photographer working in the town during the off-season. Their introduction, during which Farés cheekily convinces Laurent to strip naked for a photograph, is played for laughs, but it’s effective in portraying Laurent as the kind of guy either too accommodating or too gullible to survive in the real world. Laurent’s sentimental tendency to form attachments is ill-suited to the realities of the seasonal gig economy, where the need to pack up one’s life at a moment’s notice and move to a new city is not just some romantic quirk, but an economic imperative. Eventually, Farés will leave for Marseille; the vague hope Laurent might join him later, however, disappears entirely.

Balekdjian, Couture, and Eustachon have a patient style that suits the culture of limbo in an off-season ski town. The wide-open spaces, the prolonged silences, contemplative and serene, provide space for the viewer to think about productivity. What is the point of being productive, Laurent might have asked himself, when the screaming kid he’s helped after falling off the ski lift kicks him in the shin? What, too, is the point if there’s another home he can settle himself into with ease? If there’s an answer, the filmmakers haven’t exerted much effort trying to spell it out, though there is something to be said for the fact that for most of the film Laurent also contemplates productivity that actually is productive. Instead, the sly commentary of Drifting Laurent — whether on the toll of transience and inconsistent employment, or on the cost of isolation — can be found wandering the grounds of the resort itself, braying and jingling its bell. Laurent catches a glimpse of it himself, though there’s no telling whether he listens.


Published as part of FIDMarseille 2025 — Dispatch 2.

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