This movie was a complete mind-bender. Michel Gondry takes us on trip (an LSD trip possibly) through the absurd side of his mind in order to tell us a story. The story is simple enough - a man falls in love with a woman, they marry, the woman falls ill and the man turns his life upside down trying to cope with the emotional trauma and crippling costs incurred by his wife’s ill health - but it is its execution that makes it stand out.
The film starts at such an intense level, hurling absurdities and oddities at you at an insane pace - bells that turn to cockroaches, television chefs who hand ingredients out through the screen, unnatural human contortions and, rather disturbingly, eals that come out of taps, to name but a few - that it can feel a little overwhelming. Fraser also found it difficult to absorb all the details at the same time as reading the Swedish subtitles! When the absurd slows down it is easier to find it fun and amusing, but we were still left wondering about the choice of style. It was only really after taking a breath that we could see it for what it was. As the mood changes, so does both the colour palet and the intensity of the abstract, and the fantasy of our leading man gives way to an uncomfortable reality.
While your brain feels like it needs a holiday at the end of the hour and a half, we have here a moving, intense and well executed film. The effects are fun and the ‘50s soundtrack sets a great mood. The actors perform well to provide real characters in an upside-down world - Audrey Tautou, of Amelie fame, obviously revels in the surreal, and Omar Sy is the charming emotional core of the group as chef Nicolas. Somewhere on this journey you start to really care and the subject matter becomes poignant. The darker images in the second half of the film creates strong and moving metaphors for a situation that a lot of people could relate to. The illness of Chloë (Audrey Tautou) is typically strange - a water lilly in the lung - and this lack of a specific condition means the audience focusses on the situation and not the disease. A clever choice and a justification in itself for the crazy style.
In these days of #oscarsowhite it’s worth noting that this is one of the more diverse films we’ve seen on this list so far, even though the two main characters are still white. It is refreshing to see a diverse cast mix and mingle naturally without racial slurs as in Gangster Squad and without trying to kill each other like in The Revenant.
L’écume des jours is a good film. It’s had a strange slow burn effect, as the more we reflect on it, the more fondly we look upon it. Will it make it past the next cut? Who knows, but for now:
Will it make it into the cupboard? Yes
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