LIFE, A WALKING SHADOW

“Je crois entendre encore. Caché sous les palmiers. Sa voix tendre et sonore” (Georges Bizet, Les Pêcheurs de Perles)

Anthony is sick with dementia, but he rejects his condition and the nurses his daughter Anne finds for him, making it hard for her to go ahead with her plan to move to Paris with her new companion.

Anthony is drifting, his memory like specks of sand scattered away by the wind, and we are drifting with him. We see with his eyes, we think with his mind: does Anne live with her husband or with someone else? Does he live at their house or in his own? From one scene to the next furniture, men, even his daughter change looks and nobody is there to thin the fog. We anxiously walk with him through a maze of past memories, present reality and nightmarish daydreaming, and feel what he feels - confusion, frustration, sorrow - chilled and overwhelmed till the cathartic end.

The drama of a man struggling to be, not just exist, and of a family mourning the loss of their beloved while he is still alive: that’s “The Father”, chilling and emotionally overwhelming psychological horror on at Concordia on Thursday, 9 Feb. Ticket’s five euro for Capriotti school. Save the date and … don’t forget about it!