On the last breath – Newspaper Kommersant No. 24 (7469) dated 02/09/2023

More Than Never by Emily Atef, which premiered in the Un Certain Regard program at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, is being released. Gaspard Ulliel played his last role in this picture, but on the screen the focus is on the heroine Vicky Krips and her slow parting with life. Tells Yulia Shagelman.

In January 2022, the French actor Gaspard Ulliel, beloved by the audience more for his beauty and charisma than for any specific roles (despite two national César film awards, it seemed that his best work was yet to come), became the victim of an accident on a ski resort. He collided with another skier on the descent, suffered a serious head injury and died the next day in the hospital, at just 37 years old. This gives the ephemeral images remaining from him on the film a touch of some special fatalism.

Moreover, the theme of Ulliel’s last picture, which director Emily Atef dedicates to his memory in the final credits, was death – however, one that they know about and for which they try to prepare in advance, as far as possible in principle. Helene (Vicky Crips), a young Bordeaux resident, dies of an incurable disease. She will name her diagnosis somewhere in the second third of the film: idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. “‘Idiopathic’ means they don’t know what to do with it,” she explains to a death companion whose sentence is far more “popular”: cancer. Helen slowly suffocates, has seizures, and has to carry an oxygen tank with her. And only a risky operation to transplant donor lungs can save (or not) her.

Helene’s husband, Mathieu (Ulliel), is an example of a caring, understanding partner. He supports his wife, drags her out to meetings with friends (where everyone awkwardly shuts up and looks away as soon as she enters the room), gently comforts and sincerely rejoices when the attending physician informs her about the possibility of an operation. The trouble is that Helen has already crossed the invisible but impenetrable boundary between the living and the dying, beyond which one, despite all efforts, cannot understand the others. She does not want to be treated like a crystal vase, but she can no longer continue her usual daily routine, pulling on a mask of optimism.

In search of understanding, Helen goes to the Internet. At first, cheerfully-colored blogs with wishes to hold on and be braver push her away, but she finally finds a kindred spirit hiding under the alias Mister. On his page there are only pictures, sometimes tinged with bitter humor, sometimes simply capturing beauty. Helen’s attention is drawn to the one on which the houses on the coast of the Norwegian fjord are photographed. After talking with Mister (Björn Floberg) on ​​Skype and learning that he lives in this particular place, she decides to go there, and alone.

Mathieu, of course, is worried – both by this unexpected fantasy itself (the wife never went anywhere alone, and not because he did not let her go, but it just somehow did not occur to her), and how she will endure this trip. , especially since she is afraid to fly, and therefore she will go by train. What if a donor is found just when she is gone? But Helen insists: neither her husband, nor, perhaps, even she herself knows yet that her goodbye has already begun, but she feels an urgent need to leave for these rocks, cold blue water, the absence of the need to be the object of application of other people’s emotions and respond to them with her own. .

Mister, whose real name is Bent, proves to be the perfect companion under these circumstances. A connection immediately arises between him and Helen – not love or physical, but a community of people experiencing the same experience and feeling when it is better not to interfere with this process. Indeed, among other things, “More Than Never” is a film about selfishness: those who leave, who simply want peace, and those who stay, who are not ready to let go of their loved ones – for their own sake, almost as much as for their sake. Striking a delicate balance between these desires is incredibly difficult, but Helene and Mathieu seem to succeed, as reflected in one of the most subtle, intimate and harmonious sex scenes in cinema in recent years. The film does not deceive the viewer with the promise of a miraculous deliverance, does not offer simple answers to difficult questions, or even comfort for those who are in a similar situation. It just gives you the opportunity to hold your gaze and say goodbye.