L'absence (I) (2009) User Reviews

Now This is The Kind Of Art Movie for The Academy to Appreciate

[PartialMovieViewer · 10/10 · 11 May 2015]

"L'absence" could have been one of banality's contested, champion metonyms. The pedals of this dazzling masterpiece unfold revealing a narrative that may appear corpulent of allegory and prate – it is not. The main characters, an aging femme-pair, are closing in on the end of their respective life's journeys. As life slowly ebbs away from the two fades, so goes their relevance - their place in the world becomes less important...it is vanishing. I will admit, that if this movie had not been so well done, I would have tossed it with my cookies. But this film is very good – it is awesome, it is brilliant. What did I gather from this story? What does it mean to me? Something like, 'each person, no matter how significant or important or pretty - they once were, they eventually age, causing them to blend-in and eventually just disappear.' Wrong? Probably so. This movie could have very easily become a perspicaciously tasteful application of exegetics which would briskly metamorphoses into effete and vexatious hyperbole – Academy Awards are won by movies like that. But this one kept pace – told a wonderful, heartwarming story…and it was very artistically done….BRAVO