the impossible achievements of a fool who conquered the world

Today there are many lures for the grotesque, as demonstrated by the Danish filmmaker of Iranian origin who, after having challenged Holy Spider (2022) profiles Donald Trump’s rise as a real estate mogul. A chronicle which takes the form of bildungsroman –or origin story if you think of Trump as a cartoon villain – to create a caustic x-ray of the character.

In The apprenticethe audacity with which the duo formed by Trump (an inspired Sebastian Stan) and the Mephistophelian lawyer Roy Cohn (a savage Jeremy Strong) exercise political-judicial corruption. refers to the wacky tone of The Wolf of Wall Streett (2013) by Martin Scorsese, while the future president’s inability to climb the upper echelons of power in the 1970s seems straight out of a comedy about stupidity by the Coen brothers.

Collectively, we are faced with a cocktail of impudence and indolence that Abbasi breaks down from a truthful point of viewplaying with the ideal of the camera as a “fly on the wall” that documentarians of the time direct cinema.

With these cards on the table, it is worth asking whether, in moral terms, Abbasi is closer to the nihilistic disaffection of the Coens or the Christian indulgence of Scorsese. A crossroads that is resolved by taking the path of ambivalence.

So, on the one hand, the filmmaker does not hide Trump’s most sinister facefrom his obsessive relationship with wealth to his desire for vampiric domination, from which the character of Ivana Trump (a remarkable Maria Bakalova) will fully suffer. But the tycoon is also presented as the victim of a despotic father and as the simple apprentice of the real monster, the ultra-conservative Cohn, who instructs him in contempt for the truth, harassment and demolition of the enemy and the worship of the enemy. success.

With its effervescent collection of popular music from the 70s and 80s –from Pet Shop Boys to Baccara–, its electrifying editing and its images of decadent splendor, The apprentice illustrates, not without enthusiasm, the impossible exploits of an imbecile who conquered the world thanks to a cocktail of conviction and dishonesty.

Defenders of the film may say that: In Abbasi’s work, Paul Thomas Anderson’s obsession with the relationship between teachers and disciples pulsates, with the visionary The Master (2012) as a crown jewel. However, far from the mystery, unease and humanity that emanated from Anderson’s work, The apprentice combines heavy doses of bite and literalness to compose its artful and innocuous Trump effigy.

The reality is that Any video from the former president’s re-election campaign is more terrifying than this entertaining film.