19 October 2021

Denis Villeneuve's Un 32 août sur terre | August 32nd on Earth (1998)


(At the time of writing I've seen five films directed by the Québéquois Denis Villeneuve, and although they are all different from each other they all involve similar plot elements: an incident triggering existential crisis, and a change of psychic state at or towards the end. For this reason I include this paragraph in parenthesis in each of my comments on the five films.)

Simone (Pascale Bussières) loses control of her car as sleep overcomes her. She survives remarkably well physically, although mentally she's changed: she now wants to have a child by her platonic best friend Philippe, who's in a four-month relationship and is alarmed by Simone's wishes. But he agrees to perform the act if they're in the desert. However, an episode in Utah proves fruitless, and the problem is that Philippe is in love with Simone, which she only discovers when it's perhaps too late, when Philippe is in a coma after mindlessly being beaten up.

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