Direction: Gaspar Noé
Country: France
Argentinian-born, Paris-based helmer Gaspar Noé, whose work has been anything but predictable (Irreversible, 2002; Enter the Void, 2009), signs a killing drama centered on an elderly couple whose life becomes wrecked by a common neurodegenerative disease. In the end, we are unlikely to forget them.
Dario Argento, the director of Suspiria (1977) and Tenebre (1982), accepted his first leading role as an actor, embodying Lui, an 80-year-old Italian-born screenwriter with heart problems who is working on a book about cinema and dreams. His psychiatrist wife, Elle (Françoise Lebrun who shone in the epic 1973 French romantic drama The Mother and the Whore), four years younger than him, suffers from advanced dementia and her memory declines precipitously each day that passes. Despite the nearly inexistent help, he refuses to leave their Parisian apartment. From time to time, they have a visit from their son, Stephane (Alex Lutz), a single parent and drug addict in recovery who doesn’t even feel strong enough to take care of himself. At this complicated phase of their lives, his father intently says: “we are all slaves to drugs”.
The film is presented in split-screen mode, capturing the daily routines and specific incidents of the characters. It works both visually and narratively, conveying a precise notion of space and allowing us to understand the protagonists and better relate to them. Yet, the whole film pulses with disenchantment.
Coercing us to face the sad reality of his story, Noé has never been so poignant and mature. This time he spares us to any artistic pose or psychedelic bullshit and strikes with the devastating realism of memory loss, aging, addiction, and the end of life. It’s his most personal work to date, inspired by the death of his mother and his own life-threatening experience (hemorrhage of the brain). While dealing with the gloomy aspect of the subject, this demanding, depressing, and moving film shows an atrocious lucidity.
