Wild Foxes

There’s nothing quite like teenage friendships. In adolescence, our best buddies are the most important thing in the world; they can make us feel invincible and unstoppable. Often, we can’t imagine life without them. Wild Foxes, the debut feature film from Belgian director Valéry Carnoy beautifully, and sometimes painfully, unpacks the complexity of those friendships with deep acuity. 

In a specialist sports boarding school in rural France, two promising young boxers, Camille (Samuel Kircher) and Matteo (Faycal Anaflous), are inseparable. But just as Camille – the school’s rising boxing star – is on the verge of greatness, he has an almost fatal accident, narrowly surviving thanks to the help of Matteo. The doctors say he is healed but he starts feeling phantom pains, leaving him navigating his discomfort, trauma and the pressure to perform in an environment where giving up is not an option. 

Kircher is dazzling at the tortured and laconic Camille. He swings effortlessly from coy and bashful to anguished and panic-stricken. Matteo is more brazen, easily influenced by the group. Both characters are convincing. Most of the other boys, apart from the arrogant, spiky-haired antagonist Pierre (Jef Jacobs), fade into the background, acting as a mob who follow Pierre’s lead. There’s a hint of a romance with the tomboyish musician Yas (Anna Heckel), whose elegiac trumpet playing offers a tender foil to the brashness of the boys’ locker room antics. But that storyline peters out, leaving the focus on Camille’s existential crisis and his friendship with Matteo. 

A nuanced and layered portrayal of adolescent masculinity

Raw and visceral, cinematographer Arnaud Guez’s shaky, hand-held camerawork pans to trees with dappled lighting or a lone fox wandering through the woods. There are constant close-ups of faces and hands. Some scenes of the boxers appear like Baroque paintings, with gorgeous colour and composition. But it’s not all dreamy. The gentler rhythm is offset by genuine heart-in-your-mouth moments. As someone with no interest in the sport, even I was gripped by the ferocious boxing bouts. The beautiful camerawork is spliced with candid iPhone shots of the boxing gym, nights out and locker room rituals, giving us a direct view into the lives of the teenage boys. 

Carnoy has crafted a nuanced and layered portrayal of adolescent masculinity, through the intriguing lens of psychosomatic pain. Contemplative in nature, the initial slow burn builds up to a dramatic climax, but ultimately leaves us on a hopeful note. Despite all the testosterone-y violence, it still manages to deliciously capture the sweet naivety of formative friendships. Wild Foxes is a film of real substance – and a gem of a debut. 

In UK and Ireland cinemas Fri Apr 24.