30 May 2021

Lionel Baier's La Vanité (1996)

I've been watching a lot of films of late, so I shall usually be brief in giving a description of them. This is a kind of black comedy. David Miller (Patrick Lapp) is a sick and elderly widow who wants to end his life, and this is Switzerland. Esperantza (Carmen Maura, and yeah, the name's pathetic) is his helper, who does everything in her power to prevent him doing it: her late husband was born on the same day.

And then there's Tréplev (Ivan Georgiev) in the neighbouring hotel room, a male Russian prostitute with wobbly French. He also has a wife and kids, and he's willing to be a witness to the death but then David is so (purely academically) interested in Tréplev, his life, his charges (€300, but would he accept 250?) that things get really complicated. Why should David die?

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