Vortex
An elderly couple has lived in the same flat in Paris for a long time. For the woman, that flat increasingly begins to take on the character of a claustrophobic maze, a place where she increasingly loses her way. The woman suffers from dementia. Her husband, who is working on a book about the relationship between dream and film, tries to care for her as best he can, but it is hard for him. Their son Stéphane is looking for a solution for his parents, but he has his own problems.
Gaspar Noé is known for his controversial, frenzied films in which he treats viewers to many an excess, but in Vortex the tone is different; while the story is hugely frightening, he tells it with compassion. Calmly and gently, he shows what it means for the woman and her loved ones to be caught up in the vortex of dementia. In doing so, he uses the split-screen technique to show the different perspectives simultaneously. With Françoise Lebrun and Dario Argento.
