Watchmen (2009) directed by Zack Snyder

Olivier Père selected Zack Snyder as one of the best emerging film directors working today and chose the film Watchmen as an example that best represents his work.

Watchmen (2009):
This comic-book adaptation is set in an alternate 1985 America in which costumed superheroes are part of the fabric of everyday society, and the “Doomsday Clock”—which charts the tension between the United States and the Soviet Union— is permanently set at five to midnight. When a former colleague is murdered, the washed-up vigilante Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) sets out to uncover a plot to kill all past and present superheroes. As he reconnects with his former crime-fighting legion, Rorschach glimpses a wide-ranging and disturbing conspiracy with links to their past and with potential catastrophic consequences for the future.

"It’s a rare filmmaker today who simultaneously creates and critiques visual images, makes viewers both dream and think, and engages the collective imagination while crafting his own unique vision. That is Zack Snyder’s manifesto for cinema."
Olivier Pére, Artistic Director, Locarno Film Festival