VORTEX
#de Radikale Reduktion: Der Cannes-Stammgast und Wahlfranzose Gaspar Noé (Irreversibel/Enter
the Void/Climax) ist auch mit bald 60 Jahren immer noch für eine Überraschung gut. In seinem jüngsten filmischen Skandalon
dreht sich alles um das letzte gesellschaftliche Tabu: das Altwerden und den Tod.
#en The film takes an unflinching look at a couple, played by Francoise Lebrun and legendary Italian director Dario Argento, as they near the end of life. The notorious chronicler of hard-partying youth turns to the subject of the inescapability of aging and death.
#en The film takes an unflinching look at a couple, played by Francoise Lebrun and legendary Italian director Dario Argento, as they near the end of life. The notorious chronicler of hard-partying youth turns to the subject of the inescapability of aging and death.
#de Eine ehemalige Psychiaterin und ein Filmhistoriker erleben die Dämmerung ihres altgedienten
Glücks. Ihre Demenz schreitet rasend voran und die gemeinsame Wohnung verwandelt sich in ein Minenfeld. Das beengte Idyll
der Bücherregale und Lebenszeugnisse wird zu einem Labyrinth, in dem sie verloren geht. Er sucht Ausflucht in einer anderen,
aufgebrauchten Liebe. Der ratlose Sohn vermag keine Verantwortung zu tragen. Noé filmt den banalen, ungeheuer spannungsvollen
Alltag des Paares im Split-Screen-Verfahren, das jeden Moment aus unterschiedlichen Blickwinkeln einfängt. Die Furcht ist
groß, dass irgendwann einer der zwei Bildkader leer bleiben wird. (Gerhard Midding / Viennale)
#en An idyllic scene: husband and wife, in their twilight years, sharing a glass of wine on a balcony overlooking the Parisian skyline. “Life is a dream,” she says. “Yes, a dream within a dream,” he replies, quoting Edgar Allan Poe. And then the idyll fractures: the couple are in bed when a vertical line emerges from the top of the screen and slowly extends between them, halving the widescreen image and confining each to their separate frame. That’s how we follow them for the rest of the film – in the yoke of the split screen, bound yet irreparably apart – as they navigate the purgatory of their labyrinthine apartment, stacked floor to ceiling with the books, artworks and photographs that testify to a life spent together and immersed in cultural pursuits.
Perennial enfant terrible Gaspar Noé reveals an unknown tender side here, charting his protagonists’ inexorable advance towards death with affecting empathy. The meta-casting of film legends Françoise Lebrun and Dario Argento gestures toward the tired trope of the death of cinema; at film’s close, the headstones might bear the actors’ real names and dates of birth, but we know they’re still alive and kicking. And, as VORTEX confirms, so is cinema. (Giovanni Marchini Camia / Viennale)
#en An idyllic scene: husband and wife, in their twilight years, sharing a glass of wine on a balcony overlooking the Parisian skyline. “Life is a dream,” she says. “Yes, a dream within a dream,” he replies, quoting Edgar Allan Poe. And then the idyll fractures: the couple are in bed when a vertical line emerges from the top of the screen and slowly extends between them, halving the widescreen image and confining each to their separate frame. That’s how we follow them for the rest of the film – in the yoke of the split screen, bound yet irreparably apart – as they navigate the purgatory of their labyrinthine apartment, stacked floor to ceiling with the books, artworks and photographs that testify to a life spent together and immersed in cultural pursuits.
Perennial enfant terrible Gaspar Noé reveals an unknown tender side here, charting his protagonists’ inexorable advance towards death with affecting empathy. The meta-casting of film legends Françoise Lebrun and Dario Argento gestures toward the tired trope of the death of cinema; at film’s close, the headstones might bear the actors’ real names and dates of birth, but we know they’re still alive and kicking. And, as VORTEX confirms, so is cinema. (Giovanni Marchini Camia / Viennale)
