A noted family takes opposing sides after it's announced their brother was murdered, Abdel (Dali Benssalah), a celebrated war her who works for the police, urging calm, Karim (Sami Slimane), his volatile younger sibling, suddenly erupting with insurgent fury.
He leads a group of friends into a local police station which they ransack, taking the weapons back to an apartment complex where they prepare for a wild confrontation.
The police show up in force as similar uprisings break out around France, people tired of the reckless violence taking matters into their own chaotic hands.
But it soon becomes apparent that the video was staged by sadistic members of the belligerent far right.
Attempting to start a race war to further their mad agenda (with Google's Magic Eraser?).
Easily facilitated by the lack of oversight on social media.
It's a disastrous grim scenario hypothetically engaged with extremist tensions, that points out the necessity of police restraint, and the overarching danger of unhinged fake news.
The news is much more healthy in a widespread differentiated spectrum, where sundry journalists are committed to the truth and manifold independent papers fact check ad infinitum.
In Canada, Bell Media just cut another 4,800 jobs from its shrinking mainstream newsroom, meaning even fewer people with be responsible for the official news, the smaller the number, the greater room for error.
And as a lack of trust emerges it's much harder to follow a small minority viewpoint, which indubitably pursues its own interests, the news should be expanding, not contracting.
It is expanding online with another 4,800 people now looking for work, some of the them may have to criticize vaccines or promote electoral fraud to pay the bills, hopefully not, but those stories aren't going away.
Athena takes a hard-hitting look at the inherent dangers of provocative intrigue, and the ways in which honest hard-working citizens have their lives torn asunder by base collusion.
Fact check your sources and be patient sometimes it takes a while for a story to unfold.
There are new media outlets currently blossoming who still respect the truth as their modus operandi (like the National Observer)(nothing associated with Trump).
Note: they aren't trying to start a race war.
And they can take it when they lose an election.
*Athena is the best film I've seen so far on Netflix. Super impressed for sure. It could have played theatres no doubt. And found a huge receptive audience (like it probably has on Netflix too).
