Hannah (2017)

Directed by: Andrea Pallaoro | 95 minutes | drama | Actors: Charlotte Rampling, André Wilms, Stéphanie Van Vyve, Simon Bisschop, Jessica Fanhan, Fatou Traoré, Jean-Michel Balthazar, Gaspard Savini, Julien Vargas, Luca Avallone, Miriam Fauci, Ambra Mattioli, Mathilde Rault, Thomas Demarez, Andrea Mirisola

Old Hannah seems to lead a peaceful life. She works as a cleaner for a wealthy family, and in her spare time she does drama. But then Hannah’s husband goes to jail for a crime he denies committing himself. Alone in her big house, Hannah must come to terms with feelings of guilt, doubt, and loneliness.

The international co-production ‘Hannah’ tells the story of this unfortunate woman. The film consists for the most part of everyday actions. Hannah washing a window, swimming laps in a swimming pool, trying to bring a plant to life, taking a subway ride, frying an egg, drinking a glass of water. Beyond this mundane, we see some scenes with a little more meaning, such as Hannah’s visits to the prison and her rehearsals with the drama group.

The creators of Hannah probably made two wrong assumptions. They thought that everyday actions naturally become fascinating when a tormented person performs them. That is not true. We see that Hannah is having a hard time, but that doesn’t make the actions more dramatic. Moreover, it is a long, ingrained suffering. Before her husband went to prison, it must have been a long agony of investigation and trial.

The second mistaken assumption is that a great actress like Charlotte Rampling naturally makes a character like Hannah captivating. That’s not right either. There is absolutely no development in Hannah’s suffering, something you can’t blame Rampling but the writers do. Hannah’s stationary suffering seems to lend itself better to other art forms (photography, painting, music, poetry) than to a narrative art form like film.

What the film does well is that it does not reveal what exactly happened to Hannah’s husband. We keep getting tantalizing snippets of information, but we never know exactly what to think of it.

While writing this review, it proved difficult not to soften every sentence with the addition ‘with all due respect’. In all respects, the film is an artisanal and honest attempt to clarify something about man and his struggles with life. But watching a woman cook and clean and do laps in fascination for an hour and a half is simply too much to ask. With all due respect.