Henry (2011)

There’s something quite haunting about the reprises of the intermezzo from Mascagni’s “Cavalleria Rusticana” as they flow though this short feature about accomplished pianist “Henri” (Gérard Poirier) as he sits having a coffee in a café. He is joined by a younger woman and they chat, then suddenly something triggers and next thing we know, he is being restrained by some nurses and sedated. When he awakens, it becomes clearer to us that this is an elderly gent under some form of medical supervision; that the woman he was chatting to is his daughter “Nathalie” (Maria Tifo) and the love of his life, wife “Maria” (Louise Leprade), well she is but a figment of his vivid and lifelike imagination. He has moments of lucidity but they are all the more tortuous as they merely immerse him in what few memories he still has of his time as a soldier and of his life with his violinist wife. As he himself declares: “what is left of life if I have no memories?” and it’s that simple poignancy that is depicted very much from his perspective throughout this twenty minutes. We not only get a sense of his fear and frustration, but the intimate photography almost makes us feel that we, too, are suffering from what I assume is Alzheimer’s disease and it's accompanying loneliness. It’s a sort of life through a lens production, and a very human lens at that, and it’s quite sensitive in it’s potency. Worth a watch, I’d say.