Arnaud Desplechin's La Vie des morts | The Life of the Dead (1991)

At around fifty minutes, this medium-length film is – on Desplechin's rejection of his film school shorts as 'non-voiced' – his first film made in which he found a voice. It has a number of young actors he would use again: Thibault de Montalembert (Christian MacGillis), Marianne Denicourt (Pascale Mac Gillis), Emmanuel Salinger (Bob O'Madden Burke), Emmanuelle Devos (Bob's fiancée), etc. Desplechin says his main influences for this were Bergmann's Fanny and Alexander (1982) and Partice Chéreau's Hôtel de France (1987).

This being Desplechin, the film references aren't the only cultural references in this movie and, for instance, three characters here, in turn, recite Baudelaire's 'Voyage'. Unknown countries are highly relevant here, as a large family is meeting up in, Desplechin's admirers will of course know, a house in Roubaix, a town next to Lille where Desplechin spent his childhood.

Although amongst the young – perhaps – there's a morbid holiday atmosphere, the extended family are meeting up because Patrick, just twenty years old, is probably dying. His flatmate went out to get some medecine for his depression but returned to find he'd shot a rifle bullet through his head, and he's now in intensive care. La Vie des morts concerns the various ways each individual copes with or reacts to these circumstances, and everyone is seen in his or her individuality. Desplechin includes a number of shots of empty rooms, all containing a chair for the 'ghost'. When it's discovered that Patrick has died, Pascale conceals her scream.