Foudre. The review of the film

The director’s first feature film investigates a lustful and antithetical spirituality, but sets a discourse that remains unfinished. Competition

“Haven’t I prayed enough? Did I pray badly? ” asks Elisabeth (Lilith Grasmug) in the first few minutes of FoudreCarmen Jaquier’s feature debut.

Torn from the novitiate and framed by a rural landscape of the early 1900s – to which she was forced to return to work the fields after the mysterious disappearance of her older sister – the young protagonist traces in voice over the thematic path of the first half of a film conceptually split in two. It is the path of doubt, of questioning and, therefore, of faith, understood as the search for a higher truth and yearning for life.

Who is God? Where can you meet him or feel his presence? Do you have to climb trees? Is it possible to perceive it in the eyes of a lover and in the physical desire of another body? Through the words contained in her sister’s secret diary, Carmen Jaquier weaves a dense network of antitheses – paradigmatic is the “Innocent” name of the deceased, considered diabolical by the peasant community – and guides Elisabeth in the conduits of a lustful, vibrant and unexplored spirituality. A virgin land, with a paradisiacal inspiration – at times almost similar to Malick – in which the protagonist, embraced by the wonders of creation and the paradoxical off-screen corporeality of her sister, seeks answers and a new identity.

But the antithetical game built by the Swiss director is, unfortunately, the cross and the delight of an unbalanced work. The film, having exhausted the doubt and given us a new, reborn Elisabeth, on the contrary, is heading towards a slow decline. A few scenes with a strong emotional impact – one above all a painful, but liberating embrace – are not enough to give character to the ending. And the last shot of the protagonist – captured in a long shot as she wanders in nature without particular points of reference – acts as a litmus test of the director’s effort in concluding a well-planned speech worthily.

Of Foudre however, there remains a sensation of sweet impetuousness, probably unfinished, but capable, in several situations, of being remembered.