When we talk .“pieces” in terms of cinema, we tend to think of jaw-dropping, computer-assisted sugar rushes set up to leave the audience in awe. In Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s brilliant and brilliant new film, Suddenlythere is one such set, and it involves an actress, Tao Okamoto’s experimental theater director Mari, using a whiteboard and two-color markers to perfectly illustrate the self-destructive stupidity of capitalism to another character, the director of a progressive care home named Maire-Lou played by Virginie Efira.
With impeccably chosen words and delicate actions presented by his actors, Hamaguchi dismantles and assembles a whole world before our eyes, a fascinating spectacle of the process of a scholar who dares to look his audience in the eye with a guiding, inclusive smile.
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This French-language, feature set in Paris, co-written by Léa Le Dimna, was inspired by a work of fiction, .‘You and I – Illness Gets Worse’ by Makiko Miyano and Maho Isono. The story is largely set in the Garden of Freedom, a Paris-based care home for Alzheimer’s patients that specializes in a new form of care with the corny soubriquet of Humanitude. This special practice of understanding comes at the behest of Marie-Lou, the combined result of her anthropology studies, and the experience of her mother’s rapid decline as part of a system where patients were treated as columns in a spreadsheet.
Marie-Lou’s natural care and a little bit of magic lead her to the wonderful field of Mari, who raised the play on the topic of traditional psychological battles and, as the couple’s relationship grows rapidly, the latter reveals that she has stage-four cancer and that time is not on her side. And yet Marie-Lou is enthusiastic and educated by Mari’s efficiency in this dangerous way in her life, and the film is actually a chronicle of the couple’s time together, including a trip to the countryside of Kyoto for al fresco Cup Noodles and a long stay at The Garden of Freedom, where the professionals find a happy place for both of them to meet.
While the fear of Mari’s death swirled around Suddenlya title that even refers to the nature of his descent, a convincing and philosophical film in which a pair of highly articulate characters try to use language to unlock the mysteries of human humor. There’s a lot of theater that’s neatly within the drama, and there’s a lot of Q&A session – the Hamaguchi kink – where the unique flexibility of answering serious questions in public allows for more unguarded and poetic responses. Efira and Okamoto hopscotch effortlessly between French and Japanese, a suggestion that they can communicate with each other on a deeper level than usual. And Hamaguchi, as he does in films like this Drive My Car again Happy Hourit ensures that the supporting characters are given color, history and soul.
At first we find that there is some backlash against the Humanitude system, especially from professional nurses who feel that their professional level is destroyed by this implied separation (and eventual destruction) of the space between patient and caregiver. Yet part of the film’s job is to open the case for Humanity, not just as a way to care, but as a way to tell stories, to meet people, to make connections, to find a spark of happiness in this dark, dark world. That, sometimes, making an effort to understand someone – meeting someone on their level – can be as valuable as actually understanding them.
