Vortex

An elderly couple — he a film critic and author (Dario Argento), she a former psychiatrist (Françoise Lebrun) — live in a Paris apartment. While he works on a book about cinema and dreams, she increasingly loses touch with reality due to her advancing dementia. Their son (Alex Lutz) tries in vain to persuade his parents to move into assisted living. But both cling to their apartment and memories until illness and death inevitably tear everything apart. Gaspar Noé, the brilliant but uncompromising director of daring films such as “Irreversible,” “Enter the Void,” and “Climax,” shows himself here to be intimate but similarly unsparing in his portrait of an aging and ultimately decaying couple. The camera increasingly shows the isolated worlds of the two long-time partners in split screen, thus tracing the growing distance between them. VORTEX portrays two lives that are no longer in sync, even though they still seem to share a life together. With this melancholic portrait of the transience of all earthly things, Noé's film was invited to premiere in the prestigious Cannes competition before going on to win awards and critical acclaim at numerous festivals. “Vortex” is not an easy viewing experience – but one that is worthwhile in its depth and intensity!