Viennale Diaries: The Last Two Days
Humanity in spirit, in flesh, in cinema.
Day 7 - Saint Omer
Since I’ve never heard of Alice Diop before the flood of praise poured out of Cannes for Saint Omer earlier this year, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Critics aren’t always super reliable (e.g. Aftersun). But having rubbed shoulders with some of the best of them, I’m always glad when they turn out to be right.
Saint Omer is magnificent, and I’ll be keeping an eye out on anything Diop does from now on. It’s a lung-filling breath of the cleanest mountain-fresh air to stand behind a female director primarily because of how good of a director she is, and not because she happens to also be a woman or happens to be black. With Diop, there are no identity politics for the sake of fashionable trends behind or in front of the camera.
Her story is a subtly affecting emotional ride, like a silent rollercoaster that softly snakes around the bends before it ascends and descends the most unexpected height. We follow Rama (Kayije Kagame), a writer and professor, who is doing research for her new novel and sitting in on a court case in the town of Saint Omer. The case in question is most immersive – a young woman, Laurence Coly (Guslagie Malanga) stands trial for infanticide, after she admitted to drowning her 15-month-old daughter.
The shocking cruelty and unforgivable nature of this vile act stands in opposition to the character of the accused party before us. Coly is a well-spoken and beautiful young woman, who recounts her story with such pathos and conviction, it’s impossible to not sympathize with her even though her guilt is never in doubt. Rama gets more and more consumed by the case, as she grapples with her own personal demons and complicated relationship with her own mother.
The mother-daughter relationship is at the heart of Saint Omer. The closing argument of Laurence’s lawyer (Aurélia Petit) that’s all about moms and daughters, directed at us, the jury, is a tour-de-force of writing and directing, and is the peak of that unexpected height that the unassuming rollercoaster we didn’t realize we were even on reaches.
Had the performances from the two leads – especially Malanga – hit a single false note, the sense is that the entire film would have collapsed. They are that important. The film’s Earthy color tones, two precisely timed musical queues, and the mystery and uncertainty in the narrative all also play pivotal roles in making this a cinematic excavation of the human spirit.
Diop orchestrates it all, building up to a cathartic finale with perhaps more than a couple of questions left deliberately unanswered but no doubts as to the film’s power and importance.
Day 8 - De Humani Corporis Fabrica
As fate would have it, my last film of the Viennale was also the first film I thought about walking out on. Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel are anthropologist filmmakers, and their one and only other film I saw, 2012’s Leviathan, is among the top 10 most unique and engrossing experiences I’ve had in a theatre in the last decade. De Humani Corporis Fabrica is unique alright, but it’s just as gross as it is engrossing.
The filmmakers cover the unchartered territory of the human flesh vis a vis a couple of hospitals and ICU units in Paris. Surgeons casually chat about the day-to-day toil of life as they probe human bodies in ways rarely shown on cinema screens.
We also follow a couple of elderly patients with a dementia in a different hospital (or at least a different floor) that make you question what is more excruciating to watch: the deteriorating flesh or the deteriorating mind? Throughout it all, the respect for what these nurses, doctors and surgeons are doing on a daily basis reaches new heights.
De Humani Corporis Fabrica is one of those films that’s very easy to talk about as being good, great even, after you’ve seen it, but actually seeing it is the furthest thing from easy. There’s a reason the profession of nurses and doctors isn’t for everyone, and such an unfiltered and intimate look into their work through their eyes (and microscopes) is a stark reminder of that.
The film is undoubtedly an important challenge. Even though I personally watched most of the scenes through my fingers, chewing on the top of my shirt, or simply looking around the screen and glancing more than once at the glowing green Exit signs, I recognize and appreciate the depth.
The aesthetics of our anatomy are fascinating, all the more for how Castaing-Taylor and Paravel manage to shoot it in ways that spark the Big Questions on mortality, death and the life choices we make. I’d even go as far as to say De Humani Corporis Fabrica is essential viewing - if you can stomach it.