Well, bizarrely it starts with the full credits for the film - it takes you 2.5 minutes before you get to see anything approaching acting and then we have approximately one minute of film in a small window in the middle of the screen featuring an old couple in their flat. And then we have two mins of what looks like a 60s French pop star singing a song - and then things start to get weird...
We cut to the couple in bed, but what you don't realise until the wife gets up is that it's a split screen - one side follows her pottering about the flat while the other half stays on him in bed. At some point he gets up as well and the other side follows him - until they pass each other, at which point they swap sides! And it's fair to say the beginning of the film isn't heavy on either action or dialogue - the first 15 minutes features just one word.
And whilst the film does ramp up the dialogue as we go along, it doesn't exactly get action filled. I appreciate it's supposed to be a thoughtful study of the effects of dementia, but maybe it's not such a good thing to spend so much time with your thoughts. We basically plod along following the couple as she descends into an ever more confused state. At times, we mix things up and follow their son for a bit - but for most of the time we focus on the pair of them. And there are undoubtedly some very well observed scenes - it's obviously a very difficult situation for all involved and the dialogue comes across as quite believable, so I'm sure this film speaks volumes to those that have been through or are in the middle of such a situation. But...
...for vast swathes of this film nothing is happening on at least one of the split screens - at times you're desperately focus switching between the two of them trying to find something worth watching. And at other times, nothing at all is showing on one of the screens, which is a most peculiar effect. I started playing it at double speed when I was 40 minutes into it (and even that felt like I'd been very generous with it!) - I just couldn't face another 100 minutes of nothing happening. There were actually times with no dialogue and such little or slow motion that I wasn't actually sure I was watching it at double speed. It's also hard to tell how long a time period the film covers - a lot of it is filmed in very long takes, but there are obviously cuts between scenes, but no clue is given as to whether minutes, hours, days or weeks have passed.
To its credit though, it does have a beginning, a middle and an end - there is a story there to tell and it does tell it. Just very, very slowly. The acting is actually pretty good - particularly from Françoise Lebrun (at the tender age of 78) as Elle (her). You really believe her progression throughout the film - at times she has to act very confused for very long periods and it's an impressive performance. Dario Argento as Lui (him) also does a fine job in his first leading role (at the much more advanced age of 82), which is not in his native language either. Alex Lutz as their son, Stephane also does a good job of conveying his concerns for them whilst also obviously having his own difficulties to deal with.
It's undoubtedly an interesting film stylistically (not just because of the split-screen shenanigans) and it also gives the impression it wasn't an easy film to shoot - the apartment isn't tiny, but it's very cluttered and plenty of scenes were shot from two angles. One thing that I did find annoying is the use of a weird pause used to cut between scenes - the screen blacks out for just slightly longer than you expect, like it's a slow blink. It's also intriguing to note that it's a very different kind of endurance test to Gaspar Noé's earlier stuff (his Wikipedia page is "interesting') - the brain haemorrhage that nearly killed him in 2020 may have caused him to re-evaluate his style.
All in all, there's a lot to admire about this film but there is unfortunately also an awful lot with minimal content - twice over! I appreciate Gaspar has a reputation to uphold in terms of making his films not exactly enjoyable but if this had been cut down to a tight 90-100 minutes then it would have been, for me, a much more intriguing offering. If you like your arthouse cinema to be tediously intriguing, then this will be right up your street but I suspect most people will be perfectly happy to give it a miss.
We cut to the couple in bed, but what you don't realise until the wife gets up is that it's a split screen - one side follows her pottering about the flat while the other half stays on him in bed. At some point he gets up as well and the other side follows him - until they pass each other, at which point they swap sides! And it's fair to say the beginning of the film isn't heavy on either action or dialogue - the first 15 minutes features just one word.
And whilst the film does ramp up the dialogue as we go along, it doesn't exactly get action filled. I appreciate it's supposed to be a thoughtful study of the effects of dementia, but maybe it's not such a good thing to spend so much time with your thoughts. We basically plod along following the couple as she descends into an ever more confused state. At times, we mix things up and follow their son for a bit - but for most of the time we focus on the pair of them. And there are undoubtedly some very well observed scenes - it's obviously a very difficult situation for all involved and the dialogue comes across as quite believable, so I'm sure this film speaks volumes to those that have been through or are in the middle of such a situation. But...
...for vast swathes of this film nothing is happening on at least one of the split screens - at times you're desperately focus switching between the two of them trying to find something worth watching. And at other times, nothing at all is showing on one of the screens, which is a most peculiar effect. I started playing it at double speed when I was 40 minutes into it (and even that felt like I'd been very generous with it!) - I just couldn't face another 100 minutes of nothing happening. There were actually times with no dialogue and such little or slow motion that I wasn't actually sure I was watching it at double speed. It's also hard to tell how long a time period the film covers - a lot of it is filmed in very long takes, but there are obviously cuts between scenes, but no clue is given as to whether minutes, hours, days or weeks have passed.
To its credit though, it does have a beginning, a middle and an end - there is a story there to tell and it does tell it. Just very, very slowly. The acting is actually pretty good - particularly from Françoise Lebrun (at the tender age of 78) as Elle (her). You really believe her progression throughout the film - at times she has to act very confused for very long periods and it's an impressive performance. Dario Argento as Lui (him) also does a fine job in his first leading role (at the much more advanced age of 82), which is not in his native language either. Alex Lutz as their son, Stephane also does a good job of conveying his concerns for them whilst also obviously having his own difficulties to deal with.
It's undoubtedly an interesting film stylistically (not just because of the split-screen shenanigans) and it also gives the impression it wasn't an easy film to shoot - the apartment isn't tiny, but it's very cluttered and plenty of scenes were shot from two angles. One thing that I did find annoying is the use of a weird pause used to cut between scenes - the screen blacks out for just slightly longer than you expect, like it's a slow blink. It's also intriguing to note that it's a very different kind of endurance test to Gaspar Noé's earlier stuff (his Wikipedia page is "interesting') - the brain haemorrhage that nearly killed him in 2020 may have caused him to re-evaluate his style.
All in all, there's a lot to admire about this film but there is unfortunately also an awful lot with minimal content - twice over! I appreciate Gaspar has a reputation to uphold in terms of making his films not exactly enjoyable but if this had been cut down to a tight 90-100 minutes then it would have been, for me, a much more intriguing offering. If you like your arthouse cinema to be tediously intriguing, then this will be right up your street but I suspect most people will be perfectly happy to give it a miss.