Early one morning, Clarisse (Vicky Krieps) slips out of the house, gets into a limp 1979 AMC Pacer under a tarp, and leaves her husband Mark (Arie Walsalter) and their two young children in the car. and ran off. Lucy (Anne-Sophie Bowen-Chatet) and Paul (Sasha Ardiley).
This act of maternal abandonment at the beginning of Matthew Amalric’s “Hold Me Tight” stirs familiar emotions and questions. What is Clarisse running from, to what? Is this liberation or betrayal? The answer is not what you would expect. “Hold Me Tight” doesn’t rely on plot twists or dramatic reveals. A central mystery is solved early on.
This is not a film about wanderlust or marital grievances. It’s about grief. Clarice is more than just unhappy. Her world is shattered and her escape represents her desperate attempt to put it back together. Having already lost her family, she ran away from her family and was caught in a deadly avalanche during her ski vacation in Spain. Her departure keeps Paul, Lucy, and Mark alive in her mind and in front of our eyes, chronologically parallel to her wanderings.
They continue to live on without her, the years of their lives filling the months she spends traveling, revisiting the sites of her family’s deaths, and drifting from town to town. have grown up and new actors (Juliet Benveniste and Aurel Guzeczyk) play the old version. A talented musician, Lucy is a particularly vivid presence. Her piano playing progresses from a halted attempt at Beethoven’s Für Elise to a majestic rendition of Ligeti’s Für Elise.Musica Resercata,” is an important element of the film’s story and the driving force behind the film’s mood. Both Bowen-Chatet and Benveniste actually play music, giving their characters gravitas and credibility. “My daughter Martha Argerich,‘ declares Clarisse after watching several documentaries about the Argentine master. For a moment, it sounds more like the hopeful boast of a proud mother than a fantasy born out of bereavement.
Do Clarice’s predictions of family life without her represent a coping mechanism or a form of denial? She seems concerned with the structural and formal challenges her situation presents. Rather than demarcate the real and the unreal, he treats them as equals, carving them from Clarisse to her family as if they were separated only by geography.
This creates a certain kind of suspense when considering if, how, and to what effect two strands of the story might collide. When the climax comes, it’s exciting and refreshing. Despite the intensity of Creeps’ playing and the power of his piano repertoire, “Hold Me Tight” uses Clarice’s suffering as a scaffolding for ideas about memory and storytelling, a strange separation of mourning. proceed with the process. that.
hug me tight
Unrated. French and German with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. at the theater.