Vortex

Gaspar Noé’s tale of old age and dementia is yet another imaginative, memorable and disturbing masterwork.

Dario Argento and Françoise Lebrun

Giving a film a four-star rating is not infrequently an indication that it is consistently effective but without ever offering anything sufficiently special to put the work into a higher category. That is not at all the case with Gaspar Noé’s Vortex. Here we have brilliant performances, imaginative ideas and a work that will lodge in the memory. It is also overlong, weakened by miscalculations and for some will be a film that is hard to take. Yet, however uneven, Vortex is a totally remarkable picture and not in the least what one would expect from Noé.

Throughout his career the Argentinian filmmaker who is based in France has built up a reputation as an adventurous provocateur who regularly goes to extremes be it through his handling of sex scenes or episodes of brutality (still his most famous work, 2002’s Irreversible notably brought these two elements together in its sustained portrayal of a rape). These films have made Noé a hugely controversial figure whose work contains evidence of real artistry as well as excessive self-indulgence. On occasion both have been found in the same film just as his most disturbing material has sometimes seemed absolutely valid and at other times unjustifiable. 

Vortex can be linked to his previous work in the sense that some audiences may find it horrifying and it does see Noé once again taking things to extremes. Nevertheless, the film is also a complete break from the kind of material that he has treated before even though he is again writer and director. In 2020 Noé suffered a brain haemorrhage and nearly died and it does not seem far-fetched to suggest that this experience influenced the filming of Vortex which, set in Paris, deals with a couple in old age all too aware that death could be imminent. The focus is on this specific couple, a writer seeking at eighty to produce a book about the cinema and his wife, a former physician. He is subject to a heart condition and she is destabilised by ever-increasing dementia. However, the film invites us to see these two as representative figures given that we all face eventual death and uncertainty as to the extent that health issues will dominate our lives in old age. The film’s opening credits underline this universality since the year of their birth is written up alongside the names of those most crucially involved: Noé himself (1963) and his two leading players Dario Argento (the director turned lead actor) (1940) and Françoise Lebrun (1944). Nor is it chance that the couple remain unnamed, Argento plays ‘Lui’ and Lebrun is ‘Elle’.

Only two other characters have a substantial part to play in the film. Alex Lutz (1978) plays the couple’s only child, Stéphane and Kylian Dheret is Kiki his young grandson who visits the couple with his father. Stéphane is a loving son and considerate but the help that he can give is limited since he has problems with drug addiction and is short of money. In addition, having become estranged from his wife he has to look after Kiki on his own. Some critics have seen Stéphane's problems as an example of Noé determinedly making everything as bleak as possible, but the difficulties faced by the three central characters seem real enough, not least because the acting is of such a high quality. Lebrun in particular, best known until now for her role in The Mother and the Whore (1973), will come to be remembered for this and for the way in which her facial expressions create a complete sense of the person she is playing. But, despite what might be considered the oddity of the casting, Argento is impressive too, especially in his later scenes.

While Vortex stands apart from Noé’s other films, it does inevitably invite comparison with a much acclaimed film made in 2012 by Michael Haneke, Amour. That work, a similar study of old age, also featured two veteran figures, Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva, both of whom were wonderful. I was, however, in a minority in finding the film too depressing to recommend. Furthermore, I felt that Haneke’s controlled, unemotional tone kept me at a distance. It might be expected that Vortex would have the same effect on me, but it doesn't. Two elements play their role in this. First, Noé has come up with a highly original method of filming his story, one that helps to sustain many scenes which, representing the couple's everyday life, involve the need to hold the interest even when no big events are happening. Using the ’Scope screen, Noé for most of the time divides it into two: the one image shows Elle and how she is experiencing the day while beside it is an equivalent presentation of how Lui is seeing things. Having two images to take in keeps us alert and involved. In addition, the split screen when used in this way stands as a perfect metaphor for two people who, through the restrictions of old age, exist side by side but are caught up in their own personal experience of the day: the confinement within oneself felt by both is there, but so too is the sense of a shared past that binds them together. The other key factor is the way in which Noé’s film reveals a non-sentimental yet deeply compassionate viewpoint. The most memorable moments in Vortex feature hands reaching out to touch - they involve Lui and Elle, of course, but also Stéphane and it's worth remembering that even the blistering Irreversible concluded with a scene of tenderness.

Much here points to the fact that Vortex could have been a masterpiece. However, I have already referred to the fact that at 142 minutes it does come to feel unnecessarily long. Other factors come into play too but to go into detail would give away plot developments that should not be disclosed. Suffice to say that some late scenes prove ultimately to have a logic to them but, due to bad construction, initially strike one as implausible. Furthermore, while one adjusts totally to the split screen and quickly comes to ignore the stylisation inherent in it, one later finds the screen space being utilised in ways that merely seem self-conscious. So, ultimately, Vortex is a mixed bag. But it's still a film which for much of its length comes close to greatness.

MANSEL STIMPSON

Cast: Françoise Lebrun, Dario Argento, Alex Lutz, Kylian Dheret, Corinne Bruand, Joël Clabault, Kamel Bendchemekh, Eric Fourneuf, Nicolas Hirgeir, Nathalie Roubaud, Sylvain Rottee.

Dir Gaspar Noé, Pro Edouard Weil, Vincent Maraval and Brahim Chioua, Screenplay Gaspar Noé, Ph Benoît Debie, Pro Des Jean Rabasse, Ed Denis Barlow, Costumes Corinne Bruand.

Rectangle Productions/Wild Bunch International/Artémis Productions/Canal+/Ciné+- Picturehouse Entertainment.
142 mins. France/Germany/Belgium. 2021. US Rel: 29 April 2022. UK Rel: 20 May 2022. Cert. 15.