Heal the Living
Original Title
Réparer les vivants- Director: Katell Quillévéré
- Writer: Maylis De Kerangal; Katell Quillévéré
- Producer: Philippe Martin; Jean-Yves Roubin
CGiii Comment
Take two very disparate storylines...and watch them be woven together with delicacy and grace.
This is phenomenal story-telling...it cruises between gut-wrenching heartbreak and potential bright futures. All the while being accompanied by a sensational piano...that clings to the emotion as if it's music depended on it!
There's a protective, dying lesbian mother who favours one of her two sons...by mere implication alone. Much is left unsaid...and, it works in the film's favour. It allows the audience to think...in a similar, horrific and unimaginable, situation, what would I do?
With a mindblowing beautiful edit, flashbacks and a sob-your-heart-out scene, the director's punctuation throughout is as assured as the perfromances...
There's a clinical coldness that is counter-balanced with a mother's warmth. There's the reliable pitched against the impetuous. There's the blameless and the blamed. But, ultimately...there's the humanity...and, when that humanity comes together, great things can occur.
We don't say this very often...but, this much-overlooked film is a nothing short of a masterwork.
It's affect will live with you for quite some time.
Trailer...
The(ir) Blurb...
It all starts at daybreak, three young surfers on the raging seas. A few hours later, on the way home, an accident occurs. Now entirely hooked up to life-support in a hospital in Le Havre, Simon's existence is little more than an illusion. Meanwhile, in Paris, a woman, mother of two children, music lover, who started a relationship with a charming and talented female pianist, awaits the organ transplant that will give her a new lease on life.
Cast & Characters
Tahar Rahim as Thomas Remige;
Emmanuelle Seigner as Marianne;
Anne Dorval as Claire Mejean;
Bouli Lanners as Docteur Pierre Revol;
Kool Shen as Vincent;
Monia Chokri as Jeanne;
Alice Taglioni as Anne Guerande;
Karim Leklou as Virgilio Breva;
Finnegan Oldfield as Maxime;
Theo Cholbi as Sam;
Alice de Lencquesaing as Alice Harfang;
Gabin Verdet as Simon;
Galatea Bellugi as Juliette;
Titouan Alda as Johan;
Andranic Manet as Chris