Tomorrow At Dawn

RIALTO CHANNEL – Tuesday 18 January, 8.30pm

The film starts with a cluster of men in late 18th century military attire preparing for a swordfight in a misty field. The effort expended by the two adversaries, punctuated by the clang of metal, is thrilling. One opponent draws blood. Cut to a contemporary setting in which concert pianist and composer Mathieu (Vincent Perez) is giving a piano lesson in the tasteful salon of the apartment he shares with his wife and young son. After the lesson, he drives to the suburban Paris house where his seriously ailing mother (Fran�oise Lebrun) lives with Mathieu’s younger brother Paul (J�r�mie Renier). She will soon leave for a long hospital stay and knows Paul’s emotional stability depends on Mathieu’s support in her absence.

Paul works in a warehouse but devotes all his spare time to a clandestine battle re-enactment group centred on two regiments of Emperor Napoleon’s forces. To say that participants are deadly serious about dressing up and pointing vintage weapons at each other while speaking in the ultra-formal language of a bygone France would be an understatement.