La Vanité (2015)
Directed by Lionel Baier

Film Review

Swiss director Lionel Baier has a reputation for making quirky films on off-the-beaten-path subjects but his latest film, La Vanité, is his weirdest yet, one that will doubtless polarise audiences and critics with its playfully absurdist treatment of a subject that remains practically a no-go area for filmmakers - assisted suicide.  Stéphane Brizé recently broached this sensitive matter in a more respectful manner in his lowkey drama Quelques heures de printemps (2012), but Baier's cheeky comedy somehow invites a deeper reflection on the controversial "right to die" issue.  It's a provocative and audacious film, perhaps slightly less well-judged than Baier's previous work - Garçon stupide (2004), Les Grandes Ondes (à l'ouest) (2013) - but it is one that hits home with its brazenly off-kilter approach to what could well be one of the most important moral concerns of the next decade.

Vanitatum, omnia vanitas - "vanities, all is vanity".  As the title implies Baier intended his film to be a Vanitas, a piece of art expressing the emptiness of life.  The worth or otherwise of mortal existence is what the three central characters in the film are faced with when the Fates (or rather a pair of screenwriters with a very peculiar sense of humour) bring them together in a motel bedroom for a spot of impromptu euthanasia.  These three could hardly be more different - one is a proud old architect who is resolved to die with dignity, the second is a woman who assumes the responsibility of helping the first on his way (for her own, not entirely virtuous, motives), and the third is an athletic male prostitute who likes a good time but abhors complications.  The only thing that these three have in common is that they each harbour a stack of secrets which will come out into the open in the course of their bizarre shared journey towards death's threshold.

By confining virtually the entire film to one cramped location - a dreary motel bedroom which can hardly fail to evoke Hitchcock's Pyscho (one of many sly references for the eager-eyed) - Baier gives it an artificiality that not only heightens the comedy but also makes the characters and their developing relationship appear more tangible.  In this respect, the film is greatly assisted by the colourful yet authentic performances from the three leads - Patrick Lapp (who featured in the director's last film), Carmen Maura (best-known for her frequent appearances in Pedro Almodóvar's films) and dishy newcomer Ivan Georgiev.  The format that Baier employs is that of Jean-Paul Sartre's play Huis clos (which appropriately translates as No Exit in English) - the one with the famous line "Hell is other people" - i.e. throw three ill-matched people into a room and see what develops.  What develops in Baier's cutely idiosyncratic film is an original and thoughtful meditation on the value of human life and, more crucially, whether an individual has the right to choose the time of his death.

Film Synopsis

David Miller is a retired architect afflicted with an inoperable cancer who has made up his mind to die.  To that end, he contacts an association in Switzerland that offers an assisted suicide service and arranges a time and a place for the event to take place.  The venue is an anonymous motel on the outskirts of Lausanne, which David checks into to await the arrival of Espe, a woman of about his own age who will help him to accomplish his final act.  Espe isn't as au fait with the procedure as her client would have liked and a complication arises when David discovers that, under Swiss law, his suicide will only be accepted as such if it is witnessed by another person.  So, enter Tréplev, a Russian male prostitute from the room next door who is far from happy about being drawn into what looks like a sordid death pact.  Just when everything is arranged for David to carry out his intentions some unexpected developments interrupt the proceedings...