"Vortex" is a co-production between France, Belgium and Monaco from 2021 and it got released here not too long ago, so still a pretty new movie and outside of Europe it may even take a little longer until this film can finally be seen. The language is almost exclusively French. The film comes relatively close to the 2.5-hour mark, which means it is very long. The director and writer of this drama is Gaspar Noé, who was born in Argentina, but has focused on French-language films for a long time now. I like some of his older stuff, so I got curious about this one here as well. But it was also the subject that made me more curious. I will get to that later. The two lead actors are Dario Argento and Françoise Lebrun. The latter started appearing in films in the early 1970s, so this is kind of her 50th anniversary and Argento has been part of the industry for many, many decades too, also as a filmmaker himself obviously, both writer and director, and not just an actor, so it is interesting to see him in front of the camera exclusively this time with Noé in charge. Noé by the way will turn 60 soon as well and I somehow thought he was still younger. But you can read his year of birth very early on. Just like you are shown the year of birth of the two aforementioned lead actors. This was absolutely intentional. Their ages are a key factor in this film, or I should say the characters' ages, so Noé also wanted to show us that the people working in key positions on this movie were not young anymore either. The credits also feel very Noé, the style of them pretty much and how they are not really easy to read because of that. Also of course that these credits were shown before the film. Not at the end or so as it is usually the case. The end is the end. Nothing follows there anymore and it totally makes sense as a creative decision.
Also have to mention Alex Lutz here, a César-winning actor himself who plays the son of the two protagonists. This son has his very own problems linked to drugs and addiction. But let's look at the parents first now: The female is struggling with dementia and has better days and poorer days pretty much. During her bad days, she leaves the house with no sense of direction at all until her husband eventually finds her and picks her up to get home again. The husband has plans to release a book he is about to write. Well, actually he has almost nothing yet. Just a quote by Edgar Allan Poe and the title of the book really. And many pages of notes pretty much. I did like the Poe quote though, about life being a dream within a dream. Interesting idea. No surprise at all that the book does not get finished, barely started because both main characters die in the end. It is somewhat interesting how it is the man who dies first and not the woman as we could have guessed. The action moved so back and forth on several occasions that it was never clear what would happen. The man may be healthy in terms of his mental state, but suffered a stroke in the past and is in general not in a particularly good condition at all with his heart issues that eventually also take his life. It was fairly impressive what his wife did though when we see her succeed in calling her son and tell him to send an ambulance. Of course, she could have called the ambulance directly herself too, but nonetheless if we look at how they doubt a little earlier that she could handle such a situation at all, it was a good achievement by her. Still, it cannot save the man. He dies in the hospital a little later. Pay attention to the colors and effects Noé uses there. How the screen turns into some kind of muddy green basically the moment the man dies. And also the exact same approach when the woman dies later on.
I had some wild guesses, like for example that the woman could be the only one who makes it out alive in the end and that the son maybe dies first even from an overdose. Noé is clearly playing with us there when he shows us how the son takes this addict to his home and also how he smokes crack on one occasion with his own very young son watching. Great dad for sure. There is also a question of morale before that when he tells a friend that his mother is doing poorly and the question is basically what is worse: Getting old or dying from an overdose? Maybe you have seen Amour if you consider watching this film or already have. You should read my review anyway only if you have seen Vortex already. I thought there were some parallels between this and Haneke's Amour. The key subject of Alzheimer's of course. The old woman is struggling with it. The film is in the French language. In the end, both die. The word "amour" (love) is mentioned on a few occasions. The woman dies from suffocation under a pillow even if the one pressing it onto her head is somebody else this time. Not her husband. It is a rather well-off family. Nice place they live in and they have had good careers. And of course their child with his (not her here) own problems really. But the film also delivers on its own. I think the writing was really good at times. I think the scene in which Argento's character gets mad at the little boy was very memorable. He just had to deal with too much. The scene in which the two grown-up men talk about their mother/wife and what they should do with her was fairly heartbreaking. How she reacts. Also the moment Argento's character states that he is not ready to leave his home for good reminded me a bit of Anthony Hopkins in The Father. That was maybe just me though.
Then there is also the scene in which we have the female protagonist not remember where she is and also also not remember her husband when she tells her son she wants to go home and that Argento's character is following her around. I think this was maybe the very best acting moment from the entire film. Lebrun did really well overall and I think she gave the best performance here, a bit better than Argento who is also quite good. I liked how they referenced his character's Italian nationality too. Just like the actor's. Anyway, if Riva was probably second in Oscar race back then, then Lebrun deserves the same accolades. Which she will not be getting of course. It would be extremely surprising if this film scores a lot of awards attention overseas and almost a sensation if it ends up nominated for one or several Oscars. Another thing that has to be talked about is the split screen. Between husband and wife. This way there was always a black bar between them. Separating them and when they were united and you could see them both on both sides, then conflict ensued nonetheless, like when the husband brings her home. The flower gesture cannot change any of that. Their truly loving and caring relationship days are a thing of the past unfortunately. This becomes most obvious when she takes all his notes and flushes them down the toilet. With what he has to say to her directly afterwards. Noé is a filmmaker who is as unpredictable as it gets, so this split screen structure was already a surprise really, but he breaks it himself on quite a few occasions. It makes sense of course that one side is black when one character has died, but I am rather talking about how he switches sides here and there in terms of who is left and who is right. Or also on one occasion we see the grandson on one side, simply when there is nothing to say about one of the two elderly people. Or also the couple's grown-up son is seen on one side too when the story focuses a bit on him. Mostly when he is away from his parents and we find out a bit about his own life there.
Another thing linked to the split screen that caught my attention was how basically when they were in the same room sitting there and talking to each other, it was basically like just one camera shot. You could think that at least. Until the characters start moving and then we see it is actually two shots still. The two perspectives do not fit together into one harmonic shot. This kind of satisfaction is nothing you will get from Noé in this pretty depressing film. Instead, you get for example a good look at the two old people right after they have died. You see further misery when the female simply does not understand that her man has died and asks her son how he is. The son who himself is struggling really hard with what happened. There is also conflict between him and his parents, or more like the father when the son is told that he is the one who needs it the most to be put into a home for the elderly or a home where somebody takes care of him. There were so many moments and scenes that felt somewhat special when watching and I could write a full paragraph about most of these actually and elaborate on what Noé did there and why it was kinda special, but that would then not fit at all into a 10k limit, so I shall leave it at that and simply say that this is a film you can surely go for. I am not sure if it really has to be seen at a movie theater as I think this is also a film you can simply watch at home and it will not go south in terms of quality when seen on a small screen instead of a really big one. I must say, however, I felt that this film could have been slightly shorter. It did not drag so much that it ruined the experience, but there were segments that did not add too much for me. For example everything happening between the man's death and the woman's death felt a bit too long for my taste, so maybe two hours total would have been enough. Interesting reference in the end too with the windows because this is where the film began. And seeing the apartment getting emptier and emptier was extremely sad. I guess everybody is afraid of having to empty their parents' home. It's surely one of the days you look forward to the least in your life. Okay, this is it then. I give "Vortex" a thumbs-up, but not a really enthusiastic one. "Amour" is the superior film, but only because of how good it is. This one here is not bad either.
Also have to mention Alex Lutz here, a César-winning actor himself who plays the son of the two protagonists. This son has his very own problems linked to drugs and addiction. But let's look at the parents first now: The female is struggling with dementia and has better days and poorer days pretty much. During her bad days, she leaves the house with no sense of direction at all until her husband eventually finds her and picks her up to get home again. The husband has plans to release a book he is about to write. Well, actually he has almost nothing yet. Just a quote by Edgar Allan Poe and the title of the book really. And many pages of notes pretty much. I did like the Poe quote though, about life being a dream within a dream. Interesting idea. No surprise at all that the book does not get finished, barely started because both main characters die in the end. It is somewhat interesting how it is the man who dies first and not the woman as we could have guessed. The action moved so back and forth on several occasions that it was never clear what would happen. The man may be healthy in terms of his mental state, but suffered a stroke in the past and is in general not in a particularly good condition at all with his heart issues that eventually also take his life. It was fairly impressive what his wife did though when we see her succeed in calling her son and tell him to send an ambulance. Of course, she could have called the ambulance directly herself too, but nonetheless if we look at how they doubt a little earlier that she could handle such a situation at all, it was a good achievement by her. Still, it cannot save the man. He dies in the hospital a little later. Pay attention to the colors and effects Noé uses there. How the screen turns into some kind of muddy green basically the moment the man dies. And also the exact same approach when the woman dies later on.
I had some wild guesses, like for example that the woman could be the only one who makes it out alive in the end and that the son maybe dies first even from an overdose. Noé is clearly playing with us there when he shows us how the son takes this addict to his home and also how he smokes crack on one occasion with his own very young son watching. Great dad for sure. There is also a question of morale before that when he tells a friend that his mother is doing poorly and the question is basically what is worse: Getting old or dying from an overdose? Maybe you have seen Amour if you consider watching this film or already have. You should read my review anyway only if you have seen Vortex already. I thought there were some parallels between this and Haneke's Amour. The key subject of Alzheimer's of course. The old woman is struggling with it. The film is in the French language. In the end, both die. The word "amour" (love) is mentioned on a few occasions. The woman dies from suffocation under a pillow even if the one pressing it onto her head is somebody else this time. Not her husband. It is a rather well-off family. Nice place they live in and they have had good careers. And of course their child with his (not her here) own problems really. But the film also delivers on its own. I think the writing was really good at times. I think the scene in which Argento's character gets mad at the little boy was very memorable. He just had to deal with too much. The scene in which the two grown-up men talk about their mother/wife and what they should do with her was fairly heartbreaking. How she reacts. Also the moment Argento's character states that he is not ready to leave his home for good reminded me a bit of Anthony Hopkins in The Father. That was maybe just me though.
Then there is also the scene in which we have the female protagonist not remember where she is and also also not remember her husband when she tells her son she wants to go home and that Argento's character is following her around. I think this was maybe the very best acting moment from the entire film. Lebrun did really well overall and I think she gave the best performance here, a bit better than Argento who is also quite good. I liked how they referenced his character's Italian nationality too. Just like the actor's. Anyway, if Riva was probably second in Oscar race back then, then Lebrun deserves the same accolades. Which she will not be getting of course. It would be extremely surprising if this film scores a lot of awards attention overseas and almost a sensation if it ends up nominated for one or several Oscars. Another thing that has to be talked about is the split screen. Between husband and wife. This way there was always a black bar between them. Separating them and when they were united and you could see them both on both sides, then conflict ensued nonetheless, like when the husband brings her home. The flower gesture cannot change any of that. Their truly loving and caring relationship days are a thing of the past unfortunately. This becomes most obvious when she takes all his notes and flushes them down the toilet. With what he has to say to her directly afterwards. Noé is a filmmaker who is as unpredictable as it gets, so this split screen structure was already a surprise really, but he breaks it himself on quite a few occasions. It makes sense of course that one side is black when one character has died, but I am rather talking about how he switches sides here and there in terms of who is left and who is right. Or also on one occasion we see the grandson on one side, simply when there is nothing to say about one of the two elderly people. Or also the couple's grown-up son is seen on one side too when the story focuses a bit on him. Mostly when he is away from his parents and we find out a bit about his own life there.
Another thing linked to the split screen that caught my attention was how basically when they were in the same room sitting there and talking to each other, it was basically like just one camera shot. You could think that at least. Until the characters start moving and then we see it is actually two shots still. The two perspectives do not fit together into one harmonic shot. This kind of satisfaction is nothing you will get from Noé in this pretty depressing film. Instead, you get for example a good look at the two old people right after they have died. You see further misery when the female simply does not understand that her man has died and asks her son how he is. The son who himself is struggling really hard with what happened. There is also conflict between him and his parents, or more like the father when the son is told that he is the one who needs it the most to be put into a home for the elderly or a home where somebody takes care of him. There were so many moments and scenes that felt somewhat special when watching and I could write a full paragraph about most of these actually and elaborate on what Noé did there and why it was kinda special, but that would then not fit at all into a 10k limit, so I shall leave it at that and simply say that this is a film you can surely go for. I am not sure if it really has to be seen at a movie theater as I think this is also a film you can simply watch at home and it will not go south in terms of quality when seen on a small screen instead of a really big one. I must say, however, I felt that this film could have been slightly shorter. It did not drag so much that it ruined the experience, but there were segments that did not add too much for me. For example everything happening between the man's death and the woman's death felt a bit too long for my taste, so maybe two hours total would have been enough. Interesting reference in the end too with the windows because this is where the film began. And seeing the apartment getting emptier and emptier was extremely sad. I guess everybody is afraid of having to empty their parents' home. It's surely one of the days you look forward to the least in your life. Okay, this is it then. I give "Vortex" a thumbs-up, but not a really enthusiastic one. "Amour" is the superior film, but only because of how good it is. This one here is not bad either.