Exciting debuts and Radu Jude fill the Chicago International Film Festival

It’s less funny and less provocative than Jude’s last few films, but its unrelenting focus on a pervasive contemporary feeling—that all we can do is sit and stare at the mounting atrocities around us—brings the massive problems of economic inequality, senseless war, and rampant racism down to a familiar level. Solving them as a society seems impossible. Successfully addressing them on an individual level, without becoming a bloviating hypocrite, is as absurd as Kontinental ’25.

Similarly tough to watch but ultimately more upbeat in the long run is the sharp debut from writer-director Charlie Polinger: The Plague. Shrinking down the masculine hardships, bottled-up pain, and explosive release of Beau Travail for a group of preteen water polo players, Polinger’s film ostensibly got made thanks to the help of producer-actor Joel Edgerton. But it’s the young cast, filled with up-and-comers like Everett Blunck (who also starred in last year’s Tribeca film Griffin In Summer), who makes this anxiety-inducing look at pubescent social structures so thrilling—and so brutal.

The story is told through the eyes of Tom Lerner Water Polo Camp newcomer Ben (Blunck). It’s 2003 and little white boys with bleach-blond hair are saying “Okayyy” like Lil Jon. But even if the film is set two decades ago, the painful bonafides of its male social circle haven’t aged a day. As Ben figures out where he’ll sit in the cafeteria and how he’ll avoid getting himself an embarrassing nickname after a single conversation with the cool clique, he finds that he’s not a member of the lowest caste at camp. That dishonor belongs to Eli (Kenny Rasmussen), who all the other kids refer to as “The Plague” due to a pimply rash on his face and back. Don’t talk to him, don’t go near him, and definitely don’t touch him.

Of course, Eli is just an uncool little weirdo who wears a long-sleeve shirt at all hours and spends his time perfecting sleight-of-hand tricks and doing Gollum impressions (again, it’s 2003). He’s not a leper, but he might as well be thanks to The Plague‘s insightful understanding of how kids sniff out, then target weaknesses. Riled up by their leader Jake (Kayo Martin, perfectly cruel), the teammates bully mostly by omission, but as these kinds of thrillers go, things escalate—and they don’t stop with Eli. As the film dives into body horror’s sensory deep end, cinematographer Steven Breckon’s enticing slo-mo underwater photography somewhat undermined by Johan Lenox’s relentless score, you quickly hit the bottom of its shallow characters. But that’s not a flaw that demands banishment; aside from some ultra-direct speeches (especially from Edgerton, who plays their preachy coach) and an ending that lifts whole cloth from Claire Denis’ classic, the exciting debut boasts some honest and cutting commentary around these angry, confused little boys.

Also assessing the foibles of kids on the cusp of teenagerdom is the dazzling French animated sci-fi Arco. Splitting the aesthetic difference between a classic piece of French animated sci-fi (Fantastic Planet) and the dreamy, youthful films of Hayao Miyazaki, Arco follows a young far-future time-traveler who, with the help of a purloined rainbow supersuit, travels back to the robot-filled year of 2075. This is the feature debut of filmmaker Ugo Bienvenu, who directed a music video for electropop band Jabberwocky that throws back to older-school comics. This film is filled with clean, smooth Golden Age sci-fi designs and an English-dubbed voice cast including Natalie Portman, Will Ferrell, America Ferrera, Mark Ruffalo, and Andy Samberg.

But really, it’s just the story of a boy, Arco (Juliano Valdi), who bumps into a girl, Iris (Romy Fay). Even if they hail from different eras, with different responses to the failures of humanity and its effect on the planet, they’re still kids who share a timeless curiosity. They learn about each other as they learn about the worlds they come from, evading dangers both mundane and existential as they grow closer together. It’s this relationship and the swelling, motif-driven, Joe Hisaishi-like score from Arnaud Toulon that makes Arco feel most like a Ghibli film, because the rest is broader—both in style and narrative—than anything from that studio.

A trio of oddball brothers pursues Arco through this brightly colored retro-future, where the caretaker robots have the nostalgic design of The Venture Bros.‘ H.E.L.P.eR. and the parents are all working somewhere else, represented only by holograms. It’s truly a kid’s world, left to their own devices even as the devices have gotten exponentially more sophisticated. But few of the film’s goofy genre specifics get fleshed out over the course of its zippy story, and none of its themes ever access the grandiose universality so elegantly tapped into by the best anime. That’s not what Arco is interested in. Rather, the endearing central relationship and breezily drawn future settings confirm Arco as a soft sci-fi story that still only has respect for its young audience.