After We're Gone Movie Review:


A rich old man learns that he is dying, and, as he hasn’t got long left he decides to fulfil his final dream of watching a special theatrical performance in the comfort of his own home.

The material he chooses is a play based on the “…myth of Dionysus”. Rather fittingly, Dionysus is the god of merry-making and is a link between the dead and the living.
So having chosen his material he hires a theatre company and invites them to his abode to prepare their interpretation. It takes a while for them to get started - the cast arrive in dribs and drabs, and when they eventually do get together it becomes apparent that they are a collection of divas and ingrates.
Everywhere he looks strangers are bickering over money and past affairs, but not really doing much to facilitate his final wish.

The unfortunate problem with this film is that it doesn’t feel like the supposed stabs at humour translate very well at all. It could be a cultural clash, but none of the scenes really ring true, and memorable moments are in short supply.
This could have been a sly joke or just iffy subtitles, but in one scene a characters exclaims snidely to another, “Your heap is going to be scrap” which sounds clumsy. There are also multiple verbal and visual incidents which seem to have been desperately geared towards raising a titter - but don’t.

“Le Deluge” isn’t nearly as clever as it thinks it is, and the characters are so self - obsessed and neurotic that you end up wishing they’d all just have a cup of tea and go for a lie down or something.
There’s not much entertainment to be had in watching a bunch of luvvies schlepping around, yelling over the top of one another and breaking things - especially as this takes up most of the mid-section. It becomes all too easy to tune out of the racket.
We learn little of the old man’s life, other than he is hasn’t long left, so the feeling towards him is little stronger than indifference - when he inevitably pops his clogs it doesn’t feel like we know him any better than we did at the beginning.

Indeed, the best character of the film is not even human - he’s a lovely, languid feline, who dominates every scene in which he appears, upstaging everyone.
The chief crazy, and also producer of the show, is played by writer/director Odoul, who has given himself a central character role - he must feel quite strongly about the subject matter that is all his own creation, but it seems like this one is a little too personal and this has perhaps clouded his judgement.
Indeed, he is quoted as saying this movie was, “…the first time I realised I am making movies only for myself”, which is fine.
If that’s the case though, then he cannot complain if the audience don’t like this film, or feel alienated by this attitude.

Having never seen any of his films previously, it’s impossible to relate this to his other features “Errance” and “Le Souffle”, but they do sound by far more interesting than this wearisome, somewhat pretentious piece of work.

Terresa Gaffney

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