Vortex (Gaspar Noé, 2021) (Patreon)

I cannot say I necessarily disagree with the conventional wisdom on Vortex. In most respects it is a fine film, and there's certainly no denying its technical excellence, especially when compared with most of what passes for "cinema" on a daily basis. As J. Hoberman once wrote regarding Godard's Numero Deux (a film that shares some notable characteristics with Noé's latest), "every other film looks like a cavity on the screen" when compared with Vortex. At the same time, if one peers past Vortex's laudable formal innovations, one can observe certain sentiments and objectives that are rather old fashioned. There is a concerned social realism hard at work at the heart of Vortex. At times, it resembles the most experimental kitchen-sink drama imaginable, an unexpected union of Paul Sharits and Ken Loach.

The fact that so many commentators are applauding Noé's new-found "maturity" is not so surprising, I suppose. It's not that different than when critics praise the "discipline" of a given Spike Lee joint, although the plaudits for Vortex don't have the same racist undertones. No, Vortex is essentially a Gaspar Noé film for people who don't really like Gaspar Noé films. That's not such a bad thing, really. An artist with a less well-defined streak of cantankerousness would probably keep making work to satisfy this new cadre of fans. Noé, I suspect, will make a follow-up to Vortex that's ten times as disturbing as Climax or Irreversible. He's just that type of guy.

So what is Vortex? As its dedication states at the end of the credits (which, as per custom, appear at the start of the film, allowing Noé to slam his film shut instead of fading it out), this is a film for and about "those whose brains will decay before their hearts." It's a film about an elderly intellectual couple living in Paris whose lives are sliding into dissolution because one partner is deep in the throes of dementia. The afflicted party, the unnamed mother (Françoise Lebrun) has moments of lucidity but mostly wanders around the couple's cramped apartment in a state of fear and confusion. Her husband (Dario Argento) has health problems of his own, but is doing his best to care for his wife while also struggling to complete a book project. An Italian film studies academic, Argento's character is writing a book about cinema and dreams, and although it's unstated, he seems to understand that time is not on his side.

The first scene of the film features Argento and Lebrun sitting together on their patio, commenting that their lives together are like "a dream within a dream." This is the sort of clunky dialogue we're accustomed to from Noé, who seems to hit a certain point at which he can no longer show and is forced to tell. Or perhaps it's simpler than that. As with Irreversible's overt announcement that "time destroys everything," Vortex suggests that Noé doesn't entirely trust his audience to discern the "real" meaning behind his avant-garde horror shows. Cinema, it seems, could be thought of as a bulwark against dementia, a way to visualize our dreams and desires and to store them safely outside of our fragile brains. But Argento and Lebrun (best known for her role in Eustache's The Mother and the Whore nearly fifty years ago -- are time-ravaged avatars, showing us that the cinema itself is most likely reaching and end.

The patio scene is bisected by a black line that creeps up the middle of the screen like a burning fuse. It serves to cleave Noé's widescreen image into two separate frames, each representing a distinct camera view of the action. Sometimes there is a parallax relationship between the two, with Lebrun and Argento in the same space but seen from different angles. At other times, the scenes are simultaneous but distant, as when we see the ordinary life and substance-abuse struggles of the couple's adult son (Alex Lutz). The meticulous work between the dual-screen images is some of the finest direction of Noé's career, particularly his sudden shifts from casual points of view within the apartment to observational shots that resemble the harsh, penetrating gaze of CCTV. 

A scenario like the one that dominates Vortex, which asks us to observe as ordinary people experience their lives rapidly draining away, can invite mawkishness, and so it stands to reason the Noé's rather pitiless high-modern treatment of this tragedy is hitting hard for so many viewers. Even Michael Haneke's superficially similar Amour seems tender by comparison. But on a narrative level, Vortex betrays its hard-nosed formal approach, using heavy-handed literary foreshadowing and generating certain events for maximum spectatorial pathos. There is an unnerving undercurrent of moralism in Vortex, as it often connects its characters' moral transgressions (drug use, an extramarital affair) with the most harrowing outcomes. 

Like the last twenty-five years of Loach / Laverty productions, Vortex is about a particular problem (the plight of the aged), and the unpredictable drift of everyday life is considered incapable of accomplishing its didactic aims. Ultimately, Noé's bracing Warholian style is a conduit for a more traditional, humanistic outlook. Gaspar Noé's cinema has always been a bitter pill, but Vortex seems oddly reassuring, since it contains some very familiar medicine.