Remain vertical (2016)

Directed by: Alain Guiraudie | 100 minutes | comedy, drama | Actors: Damien Bonnard, India Hair, Raphaël Thiéry, Christian Bouillette, Basile Meilleurat, Laure Calamy, Sébastien Novac, Baptiste Roques, Adrien Marsal, Tangi Belbeoc’h, Jakez André, Mathieu Milella, Charles Bénéat, Mathieu Philibert

Wonderful images of nature and theatrical dialogues, the intriguing ‘Rester vertical’ in itself is not an easy film to interpret. An ambitious one, and we can expect the same from Alain Guiraudie after the critical success of ‘L’inconnu du lac’ (2013). Man’s bond with nature, the search for meaning, latent homosexual feelings, the decline of the countryside and family life, the bond with your child, Guiraudie takes a lot of work. We have to conclude too much, but his courage is commendable.

We meet Léo (Damien Bonnard), a seemingly prosperous city dweller who is looking for an actor for a film in the south of France, or for the wolves of the Massif Central. Or is he looking for himself? He soon meets a shepherdess (India Hair) who lives with her father (Raphaël Thiéry) with two children. Not much later, Léo, who had moved in with Marie, fathered a son and, as a shepherd, saw through his binoculars how Marie, who had suffered postpartum depression, got into a car with her two eldest children, never to return.

Léo is alone with the baby and the farmer, who has a crush on him. Did Léo and Marie swap lives? We get little explanation and the focus remains on Léo, for whom a subplot is devised around a lonely neighbor (Christian Bouillet) with whom a boy (Basile Meilleurat) lives. The subplot has a strong homoerotic charge. Meanwhile, the single father gets adrift, drags the baby everywhere, threatens to run aground, but keeps returning to the farm.

There is another deeper layer, which we do not reveal here, but which embeds it all. It is in any case a lot that the viewer has to digest in order to understand Léo; however, the film continues to intrigue, as the story of a man on the run for life. Then you find chaos and act impulsively. And then reality looks unrecognizably erratic. In all its individuality, this film tells a chronological story. Guiraudie, who flirts with the work of Bruno Dumont, could have focused more on the main points, but as a stimulating experience ‘Rester vertical’ is a successful undertaking.