"He loves me, he loves me not" words spoken in the darkness at the start of the movie. These words are very shortly to be repeated by Bulle Ogier in a banal play as she picks petals from a daisy. However the first speaking hints at something far less banal, it's an out-loud thought about whether God loves us. Scenes from the book of Job are relayed later on in the fourth act of the movie where Job is made to wonder about why he has been visited with affliction despite his piety, the same issue is at hand. The first act unearths the selfishness lying within everyone just beneath a thin facade, the second act is a terrible wail from an individual about their complete failure to fulfil their true self in this life, reusing text from Beckett. The third act plays scenes from atrocities and environmental catastrophes and reminds me that issues of much more import than art occur in the world. There is an element of reflexivity in the movie in that it's hinting that there is a respite from sorrows in another life that we must believe in; and also that quite a lot of the movie tests one's patience but you are then extraordinarily rewarded with a final scene of astonishing beauty, a recreation of Luciano Laurana's 15th Century painting "Ideal City" from the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino; and the ecstasy of Job, surrounded by his beautiful descendants. The interplay between Beckett and Job I find very inspiring, on the one hand people now find it hard to ->truly<- lift a finger for themselves or anyone else, and murder their true selves, and then there is the chasm to loving God even though he takes everything you have and visits you with boils. In the end, an edifying experience.
Review of Mon cas
