Else review

By David Dent

Originally an 18-minute short film of the same name made back in 2007, it’s taken director Thibault Emin nearly 20 years to realise a full-length version of the original concept. And something of that insane commitment comes through in a movie that Emin has commented will leave audiences unsure of whether they like it or not.

Designer Anx (Matthieu Sampeur), a withdrawn guy who uses ASMR videos to calm himself, meets outgoing, kooky Cass (Edith Proust) at a party and spends the night with her in his room, which looks like something from a 1970s kids TV show. Anx (presumably short for ‘anxious’) is unable to perform but in any event a growing bond forms between them and they spend a lot of time together; Emin uses a familiar montage sequence from a dozen meet cute movies to illustrate their attraction; but really nothing about Else is in any way normal.

When a resident of Anx’s apartment complex, the huge Mr Mouaki (Toni d’Antonio), begins to act strangely, it’s a precursor to his contracting a disease that changes the nature of his whole body. The virus quickly reaches epidemic levels, and Anx and Cass end up together as the city is placed in lockdown. Newly in love, the pair make the best of it, communicating with their other neighbours via the communal garbage chute. But Cass becomes ill; she has contracted the disease, the pathology of which alters the whole nature of her being, fusing body and built environment.

Else’s story is the stuff of written science fiction; specifically the kind that filmmakers think couldn’t be adapted for the screen. The virus in the movie is not benign, but neither is it aggressive. It wants to effect a transformation, and humans just happen to be the best organic hosts. Sampeur and Proust are great as the couple caught up in a very trippy form of ‘alien’ invasion; the film’s overall abstracted approach will probably divide people, but I thought it was a really bold movie.