[CRITICAL] It IS THE HEART THAT DIES LAST

It IS THE HEART THAT DIES LAST from director Alexis Durand-Brault is the first film presented in the competition of the French film Festival of Angoulême.

The film is an adaptation of the autobiographical novel of Robert Lalonde by actor Gabriel Sabourin, who plays Julien, the main character. The film has a peculiarity of québec, which will escape no doubt, to the “damned French” : it brings together in a single role of mother to two ages two actresses famous of which are mothers and daughters in the life: Denise Filiatrault (considered as the “Jeanne Moreau in Quebec, ” according to Dominique Besnehard, general delegate of the Festival) which is back on screens after 27 years of absence, and his daughter Sophie Lorain. Which explains the physical resemblance, gesture, and phrasing between the two actresses, and allows an obvious continuity in the narrative.

It IS THE HEART THAT DIES LAST is a beautiful film about the relationship between a man and his mother, evoked by two periods of their life : Julien at the dawn of his fifty years, and Julien young boy of ten years. A complex relationship, mingled of fascination and rejection towards this mother. A woman with a strong character, who wanted to be free and dreamed of a life of princess, but fretted in her home, cooking for her children and dancing to the music of Harry Belafonte. This emblematic figure in the infancy of Julian closed the curtains of her windows, as she closed her metaphorically of the eyes to certain acts. And then a father absent, and yet omnipresent.Simple cabinet-maker, Julien has just won a prestigious award of the canadian thanks to the book he has written on this relationship, exhibitor, paradoxically, to the general public its family intimacy. Long angry with his mother who is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, he can not share with her the subject of his book. But at the threshold of the life of his mother, the resentment of Julian demand accounts. Because It IS THE HEART THAT DIES LAST is also a beautiful film about memory : that which is lost in the meanders of the disease, and reflects in sometimes surprising ways, but also one that is probe tirelessly to try to understand its own history. Julien is indeed driven by a fundamental question to which her mother has never responded because he did not dare to ask. The flash backs in the film are many, to better understand the plot and the secret that leads the life of Julian for so long.

The film maker succeeds the feat to tackle a sensitive topic and taboo at the heart of families, without ever naming it. He recalls the keys sufficiently subtle, without demonstration theatre. Despite some difficulties to understand all the nuances and expressions of the language in quebec, It IS THE HEART THAT DIES LAST is a intimate drama particularly moving.

Sylvie-Noelle

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