Starring: Barbara Sukowa, Martine Chevallier, Lea Drucker, Jerome Varanfrain, Muriel Benazeraf
Distributor: Vendetta Films
Runtime: 95 mins. Reviewed in May 2021
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This is a first feature film for director Filippo Meneghetti. It was selected as the French entry for competition in the 2021 Academy Awards, and won a Cesar Award for first feature direction by Meneghetti.
In the film, two pensioners, Nina Dorn (Sukowa) and Madeleine Girard (Chevallier) are retired. They are both over 70 years of age, and they live in the same apartment complex. They have kept a deep love for each other hidden for decades, and no one knows how intense their attachment to each other is. Nina and Madeleine live in separate apartments that face each other across a small corridor, but the spacing of their apartments allows them to move freely across to each other.
When a severe stroke strikes Madeleine down, the film’s plot-line moves quickly to convey the message that loving someone is an experience that is deeply affected by the threat of loss. The film sensitively explores the conflicts posed by forced separation. The acting by Sukowa and Chevallier is excellent. Madeleine had an unhappy marriage with her late husband, and her two adult children – Frederic (Varanfrain) and Anne (Drucker) – have no idea of the extent of their mother’s attachment, and the grief that separation is likely to cause.
Shortly before the stroke, Madeleine promised Nina that she would tell her children that she and Nina want to move away together to Rome, but she doesn’t. The film subtly implies that Madeline feels the attachment to her children and grandchild would be lost if she moved, and she lies to Nina. When the stroke hits, it affects her speech and ability to communicate, and Madeleine returns to her apartment, confined to a wheelchair and unable to speak. Madeleine is locked away from Nina, and Nina becomes desperate to communicate with her. Madeline’s children and a new carer (Muriel Benazeraf), however, make contact almost impossible. The film builds up strong tension that absorbingly addresses the need to understand how Nina and Madeleine will cope. Nina watches and waits for any chance to see Madeleine, and thinks only she can help Madeline see and talk again. When the film focuses on Nina’s distress, it enters into thriller mode, and some well-directed, tense moments, with dark edges, keep viewers guessing until the movie ends.
This is a tender film about a loving relationship between two women, under extreme stress. It is an unusual tale of a strong attachment between two elderly women who have successfully kept their relationship secret from people around them for a very long time. When Madeleine broke her promise to Nina that she will tell her children, Nina became angry and resentful. The film suggests Madeleine’s anxiety about admitting her relationship to her children may have caused the stroke, implying that the stroke was a result of the emotional pressures being experienced by Madeleine, who wanted to please both family and Nina. Unusually interesting is the way the film explores parents’ fear of their children’s reactions to what they do, and how they feel.
The film’s cinematography is excellent in its use of dark hues, sparsely lit, in patterned surrounds. It is a touching, beautifully directed film about a relationship that invites questions about the complex nature of human attachment. Viewers are presented with difficult issues such as “who does one share one’s inner feelings with, and what degree of honesty can alleviate the pain of loss?”. The film doesn’t answer these questions, but it stimulates their asking, and invites further thinking about them. The film’s thriller components augment the pain that can be associated with human attachment. The movie lingers in memory as a moving depiction of human longing – one that explores a love, that engenders distress and anticipated loss, deeply felt.
Peter W Sheehan
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