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Reviews
Saint Omer (2022)
Unloved daughters of broken mothers
Alice Diop and her cast are truly amazing... In previous work (Vers la tendresse), she managed to capture some of the emotional struggles of young French men with a migratory background and living in economically deprived Parisian suburbs. In Saint Omer, she focuses on the emotional struggles of women from a similar background. This is the story of two daughters, Rama and Laurence. Rama is a symbol of the French meritocratic system. From a modest background and of African descent, she is a university professor and a successful novelist. We understand that her mother, probably a cleaning lady, used to leave home very early to go to work. Laurence, a former student in philosophy, passionate about Wittgenstein, "never wanted for anything". With the financial support of her parents, she emigrated from Senegal as a young adult to study in France. Laurence is being tried for killing her 15-month-old daughter and Rama is attending her trial. As she listens to Laurence, her chldhood, her relationship with her parents, and in particular her mom, Rama is brought to reflect and feel about her relationship with her own mother. Laurence and Rama are two highly assimilated women, materially standing on the sore shoulders of their respective mothers, and who have achieved a level of social success that is often denied to men from similar communities. And yet, deep down, both of them suffer from the (perceived?) lack of warmth and love of their mothers, with terrible consequences for Laurence and her relationship with her own daughter.
This is a story about parental love, and in particular between emotionally struggling mothers and their unseen daughters. It's not specific to any community or economic background. What, to me, makes it a true masterpiece, is the compassion we are left feeling for all these women.
I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020)
Alternative explanation post (compatible with book)
The entire trip stands for a relationship between two emotionally unavailable people: a closet narcissist (a janitor who dreams of receiving Nobel prices and standing ovations) and an overachieving student who is afraid of abandonment (she is a physicist, a poet, a painter, a cinema critic, studies gerontology, and when she sees Jake and herself, she sees two perfect people, loving each other, getting married and the relationship ending abruptly, at the hands of an unidentified threat. Her younger self is afraid of the future, of death, and doesn't want to go forward).
Although they have a few good conversations and seemingly intellectual connections, the relationship quickly becomes cold, dark, stormy, the passenger feels that things do not make sense, there are inconsistencies (new swings in front of old empty houses), never ending stops (at the parents), unwanted detours (at the ice cream parlour) and diminishing trust (on the way to the highschool). She wants to stop early on, feels the need to have a closer look at things, but the car just goes on, the "irrelationship" keeps going.
The closet narcissist is in the driver's seat. He barely knows her name, doesn't really see or know her, simply sees her as an "it", an extension of himself, who is there to validate him, to make him feel worthy and confident. Also, she is beautiful in her own way, a way that he can feel comfortable with, that he doesn't see as a threat (like the blond girls from his high school, who made fun of him), and this is also why he can tolerate to be with her.
She is avoidant/dismissive, she admits to herself that they have a great relationship, a true attachment, but she doesn't know that she cannot really tolerate intimacy (and this is why she is with a guy like that in the first place) and thinks that she should end things, without really knowing why. Because she has actually found ways to feel worthy (overachieving and being successful at it), in contrast with him, she does not need others' validation and she might actually truly be comfortable with ending relationships (but this part is unclear, because she is also insecure in her own way).
Being in a relationship with him involves "visiting his parents", being exposed to his childhood trauma: parents who only value achievements because they live through him (they have their own issues, poor health/lack of education and he is their "it", their object, they obtain validation through him, his achievements). They never value who he really is, hence his feeling of worthlessness, his need for external validation through extraordinary achievements, even if the achievement is here another (objectified) person.
He feels so much toxic shame about who he is (a janitor and not a physicist) that in addition to being a closet narcissist, he is a controller: on the one hand he is very diligent but on the other, everything is on his terms, she will only go where he wants her to go (not the basement, for instance), she will only get as close to him as he will let her while not really showing her who he truly is (someone who is really just using her because he feels empty and sad, because his parents were really sweet but cold, never truly there for him).
The more they progress in the ride, the more she understands the extent of his general lack of attunement. He doesn't hear her, she has to raise her voice, get angry, repeat what she wants, that she wants to go "home". They are not really going home and she feels like they are not really going anywhere. He repeatedly abandons her, when he is scared (at the ice cream parlour), when he is angry (at the high school). Her subconscious is calling her more and more often, telling her that something is really wrong here.
And indeed, there is something wrong, because he is so self-centered that it's all really only happening in his head. This is a one-sided relationship. He actually never manages to connect with her or anyone else.
This is the best film I have seen in a very long time.