Under a Blue Sun – Films – Visions du Réel

Daniel Mann
Israel, France | 2024 | 79 min
Swiss Premiere
Languages : English, Hebrew, Arabic
Subtitles : English, French

Under a Blue Sun underscores the way in which fiction can serve as a prism for understanding reality. Daniel Mann probes the complexity of the Israeli-Palestinian territory – its sufferings both spoken and unspoken – through the lens of a 1988 blockbuster. Rambo III, which depicts the Soviet-Afghan War, was actually shot in the desert of Negev, with the complicity of the Israeli army.

When reality seems too unbearable to tackle head-on, the simplicity of a blockbuster can serve as a guide, a metaphor, or rather a counter-example by which to approach it. In Under a Blue Sun, Daniel Mann portrays the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, its history, its representation, its pain and its turmoil, through the prism of Rambo III. The 1988 film depicts the character played by Sylvester Stallone as an American mascot involved in the Soviet-Afghan war. Shot while the conflict was still taking place, its backdrop was substituted with the Negev desert, which was made available by the Israeli army. The film returns to the places where faked images were created, explosions were slowed down for the purposes of performance, and the sun was tinted blue to disguise the earth it illuminated. As many metaphors for the absolute power wielded by the entities in possession of the means of representation and distribution. Never has the concept of soft power been so mislabelled as in this extremely subtle and intelligent film.

Dimitri De Preux

Under a Blue Sun, 2024
The Magic Mountain, 2020
Salarium, 2018
Low Tide 80', 2017
Future Diaries, 2015