Continuer (2018)
Directed by Joachim Lafosse

Film Review

Over the past two decades, Belgian filmmaker Joachim Lafosse has carved out a distinctive niche for himself with his claustrophobically moody portrayals of characters (often family members) failing to connect as they simmer with an inner turmoil that threatens to erupt at any moment.  To his earlier studies in dark and sometimes deadly introspection - Nue propriété (2006), Élève libre (2008), À perdre la raison (2012) - Lafosse adds another which, on the surface, appears markedly different, although it does in fact tread very similar ground, a continuation of what has gone before.

Based on a prize winning novel by Laurent Mauvignier (first published in 2016), Continuer appropriates the familiar trappings of the classic western and road movie in its delicate exploration of the complex relationship between a reluctant mother and her estranged late-teens son.  Despite being set entirely in the wide open spaces of Kyrgyzstan, the film manages to be every bit as oppressive as Lafosse's previous work.  It isn't long before the deceptively open vistas prove to be as crushingly confining as the cramped domestic interiors of the director's earlier dramas.

Just how can a 30-something mother and her rejected offspring connect when they have hardly ever spoken to each other before and manifestly seem to prefer the solitary paths they have trodden to the one on which they will walk hand-in-hand into the sunset?  What could possibly motivate two such individualistic characters to agree to share a protracted riding holiday in one of the most godforsaken wildernesses on earth?   This is something the film doesn't dwell on - we just have to take it as read that, improbable as it may seem, the free-spirited mum Sibylle and her delinquent son Samuel have the same yen to form some kind of bond, even though it's clear they are far more emotionally in tune with the horses they are riding than each other.

Lafosse's sparse screenplay could so easily have fallen flat were it not for the casting of two highly talented actors - Virginie Efira and Kacey Mottet Klein - in the lead roles.  Efira has come a long way since she started out as a presenter for Belgian television in the late 1990s.  For the past decade and a half, she has grown in stature as an actress and has proven to be equally at home in light comedy and serious drama - evidenced by her knock-out performances in such diverse films as David Moreau's 20 ans d'écart (2013), Justine Triet's Victoria (2016) and Catherine Corsini's Un amour impossible (2018).  Klein's rise from promising child actor to capable adult performer has been even more dramatic and, after his arresting contributions to Ursula Meier's L'Enfant d'en haut (2012) and André Téchiné's Quand on a 17 ans (2016), he appears set to become one of the leading French actors of his generation.

Efira and Klein are given next to no dialogue but what they manage to convey through their looks and body language says more than any quantity of spoken words.  The need that the mother and son both feel to connect with one another, and their understandable reluctance do so, are evident in almost every shot in which they appear on screen together.  With an almost tragic finality, the vast expanse of open land that surrounds them howls out to us the enormous gulf between them, whilst also stressing the profound inner void that lies within them both, taunting them as they search for meaning in their lives.

Continuer is the most contemplative and demanding of Joachim Lafosse's films so far, and whilst it has considerable artistic merit (most notably in the way the startlingly expressive location photography comes to mirror the psychological states of the protagonists) it doesn't quite do justice to Mauvignier's complex literary work, failing to match up its dramatic and poetic power.  Just when you feel the film is about to head towards some kind of meaningful resolution it ends - with a brutal abruptness - and you are left feeling slightly cheated.  Whilst it may be somewhat less satisfying than the director's previous work, Continuer manages to hold your attention through a combination of faultless acting and inspired location photography, both of which lend the film a sustained tension that is bitterly reflective of the strained relationship between the mother and her son as they struggle to connect across the void.

Film Synopsis

Sibylle is a divorced woman in her early thirties who has come to regret abandoning her son Samuel.  One day, acting on impulse, she contacts her son and persuades him to accompany her on a long and solitary horse trek across open country in Kyrgyzstan.  Samuel, a horse-lover like his mother, finds it hard to resist participating in such a wild adventure, but as they began their journey the mother and son find it hard to communicate with one another.  They are strangers and Sibylle's hopes of forming a meaningful bond with her son appear to be fruitless.  As they continue their equestrian odyssey, they will encounter many hazards and set-backs, but the greatest difficulty they will have to overcome is themselves...