Ode to hardship – Weekend – Kommersant
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“More Than Never” is released in Russian cinemas – the last film in which Gaspard Ulliel played, who absurdly died last year in the mountains. The story of the relationship of a married couple who faced a terrible ordeal – a serious, incurable disease, was shown at the last Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard competition – not a single prestigious film festival can do without a film like More Than Never.
“More than Never” is a new work by a native of Berlin, Emily Atef, who has long been registered in the Hollywood hills, remembered by critics for the poignant film “Three Days in Quibron” (in the Russian box office – “3 days with Romy Schneider”, telling how, shortly before her death, Romy Schneider decided to give an extremely frank interview to Stern magazine. Having dealt with the causes and consequences of the mental illness that her great compatriot certainly suffered from, Atef took up a more graphic plot – the features of a physical illness, namely pulmonary fibrosis. The main character of More Than Never, Ellen (Vicky Crips), suffers from suffocation already in the first scenes. But the main test, of course, is not pain, but fear. That the end is near and inevitable. That a lot hasn’t happened. That not a single living soul from her environment is able to understand what it is like to slowly die humbly.
Ellen Mathieu’s husband (Gaspard Ulliel) seems to be doing everything possible to alleviate the fate of his beloved. Leaves work, arranges house parties, at which, despite the efforts of everyone present, dramatic pauses constantly hang. After all, the life of friends goes on, someone is planning a ski vacation in a cozy chalet, someone is expecting a baby. And only Ellen is deprived of a future, more and more isolated in her misfortune.
The dying become very selfish. They are gnawed by envy of those who are healthy, well-fed and careless. Every minute they ask heaven – why me? Why did I have such a fate? What did I do to deserve this? Is it fair?
In order not to go crazy, Ellen begins to search the net for the same doomed ones. One of them, nicknamed Mister, maintains an original blog that humorously captures the fading routine. Without pathos, without motivational chants, he shares picturesque views from the window and humorous selfies with a modest audience. Mister is located on the other side of Europe, in distant Norway, where the landscapes are so noble and sublime that even a person wants to match the general severity of the atmosphere.
Of course, a strange friendship will develop between Ellen and Mister, the secret of which can only be unraveled by the condemned to death. If darkness comes, if there is nowhere to run, it is better to go where the nights are much longer than the days. In this sense, Norway is an ideal location. Yes, and most of all, the unknown is frightening, and death is our old friend.
Every year, a film similar to “More Than Never” appears in the program of the most prestigious festivals. The plot is simple, but no less unbearable. The hero receives a terrible diagnosis from the hands of an esculapius satiated with the suffering of others. For some time he fights, for some he becomes angry, then he dies with humility. A couple of years ago, in the same Cannes, they showed “After Me” with Benoit Magimel and Catherine Deneuve – an extremely sentimental sketch about the final days of an oncological patient, before whose faded gaze there are scenes from a former healthy life, no matter how sad it may be, you cannot return the past. You won’t get anything back. As an illustration of this maxim, the director Emmanuelle Berko invited his teenage son, who was exhaling the spirit of Mazhimel, who played the guitar “Yesterday” for his dad, to the hospital ward. The limit of vulgarity? Rather, despair without borders. No one has yet been able to cope with the irreversibility of time and the finiteness of life, or at least get out of the duel with dignity. No one is a Buddha, no one is an island, one day everyone will become very scared and hurt. To prepare us for this moment, films like this are being made. Such a rehearsal of the orchestra on the sinking Titanic.
At the box office from February 9
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