Inès has just turned 20. His mother is an “eggplant”, still alive but unable to communicate. With his father, the relationship is fusional, not always easy. Inès is now an adult and she searches for who she is, through destructive experiences that will lead her down a descent into hell.
Posted yesterday at 10:30 a.m.
The third feature film by Renée Beaulieu (The mechanic) is a coming-of-age story that also brings the immense psychological distress to the screen. To depict the decline of her character, the director does not go out of her way and does not try to divert her camera from the ugliness of what she describes. It is sometimes the viewer who will want to look away from the screen.
Rosalie Bonenfant’s game is among the best in Ines (that’s saying something, while the always fair Roy Dupuis gives him the reply). Present in all the scenes, she embodies the title role in a superb way. His character undergoes a thousand and one difficulties. Mental illness and addiction take control of one’s being, of one’s actions. And the actress, especially with her eyes, conveys to us everything that Inès feels.
Renée Beaulieu’s camera follows Inès so closely that major flaws in the interpretation would inevitably be noticeable. This way of filming, moreover, makes the hour and a half during which we accompany Inès suffocating. The more Inès is engulfed in her discomfort, the more we feel caught up in this distress that gnaws at her.
The Montreal of Inès, city-character, looks like a martyr. The cold and darkness reinforce the impression of an endless abyss. The few effects added to the image (we sometimes switch to black and white, for example) are very literal, perhaps a little too much. The scenes, sometimes cut very short, give the impression of a spiral that sucks in its prey. The jerky rhythm occasionally makes it more difficult to appreciate what we are being shown.
An evidence, despite everything: the two women who wear this film have done a great job.
Showing this Friday
Drama
Ines
Renee Beaulieu
With Rosalie Bonenfant, Roy Dupuis
1:29 a.m.