TIFF 2023: Spirit of Ecstasy (La Vénus d'argent)
TIFFSpirit of Ecstasy takes a sizeable chunk with its bite that covers multiple tones, genres and thematics that touch on politics, social issues, economics and gender identity – to name a few. To its credit, and quite surprisingly, director Héléna Klotz just about nails all the above with intrigue, honesty, emotion and compassion in a quite wonderfully shot and produced venture that star Pomme – in their debut performance – carries with terrific sensibility.
To let the cat out the bag, audiences for the first third of this feature are going to struggle. Not in narrative, structure or tone but what genre and tonal direction this feature is heading towards encompassing. It begins in echoing the French riots – currently ongoing to combat raising the age of pension schemes – with the lead character smashing through a storefront to steal a suit, from that frame alone to tell the viewer where this is all heading would undeniably come as a surprise. The film then skips to gender norms, and economic constraints, public reforms, sexual fluidity – creating a consistent and constant dynamic every twenty minutes. Both with good and bad results in the screenplay reinvigorating with constant immersion and a surprising freshness and unknown heading; that being the good. The bad is simply that so much is hitting the viewer at a race of what feels constant with difficulty in flow and engagement, one minute engrossed with the gender side of proceedings and then suddenly thrown into the financial sector. It’s a small cost to bear because ultimately it all, slowly but surely, comes together to craft what captures a perfect sense of angst and difficultly in finding place. It’s an echo explored through the ruins of greed and just through the eyes of experimentation and exploration. Think Alice walking blind down the rabbit hole – what will she find? That sort of dynamic in the sense that this leads where it leads through the idea of a breadcrumb that grows. To reiterate, this sense of aimlessness increases the unpredictability and therefore immersion of events.
Granted, the above is just the narrative, what excels this feature is how it’s captured and performed. Starting with the former, and to put it bluntly, Spirit of Ecstasy is quintessentially French angst. Now while that might sound irreverent or a backhanded complimented it isn’t. Many features of this kin try to echo a similar visual sentiment but tend to echo contemporaries and not quite grasp the aesthetic needed to nail the tone of this feature. Director Héléna Klotz and cinematographer Victor Seguin craft a visual sentiment that uses dark blues and silvers to craft emotive visual angst and loneliness that restrict brighter and engaging colours to interact. A simple yet effective choice to illustrate emotions that helps construct and build certain areas where lead performer Pomme isn’t able. Furthermore, to layer this visual cue, the feature quite prominently uses glass and mirrors to submerse, and quite critically reinforce, tone upon the character and audience. It does this by showcasing the lead trapped in their own restricted image; a comment no doubt on the film’s discussion on gender identity, specifically in this case on body dysmorphia and being non-binary. It creates quite a haunting back burning underbelly of an image in being constantly haunted and shown the perception of image and resulting trauma of never being able to escape it.
It is one small but subtle sentiment the feature holds, but put simply: is a tiny but significant detail that showcases Spirit of Ecstasy has quite a lot to say and how to say it in multiple forms. Even on a more generic value of composition, this feature often looks fabulous, constantly intimate and therefore engaging and immersive with a prominent amount of medium shots and close ups to place the same claustrophobic and intense atmosphere that lead Pomme is engulfed in both physically and psychologically. Again, small breadcrumbs that craft a larger emotive and immersive core. The score by Ulysse Klotz is equally as effective in a similar scope. Small internal hums and beats that find rhythm and place – much like the central character themselves – ultimately finding form and direction with flow.
All the above are toppings on the cake, with the main dish served in what shockingly is the feature film debut of artist and musician Pomme. Identifying as non-binary, Pomme superbly showcases this through Spirit of Ecstasy in a tone of authenticity and honestly. It’s not just about the believability factor here but further in that the pain, suffering and angst is captured from a perspective of reality, from a life lived and felt. Thus the reaction on screen credits a deeper more affectionate meaning of truth, provided here in a terrific turn from Pomme, who engulfs the audience in wonderfully emotional rollercoaster of working the jigsaw of life and identity into an end product, captured with subtlety and never overly manufactured, which reinforces that needed immersion and authenticity. So that the audience can receive and understand in simplistic terms, of which is nowhere near as easy as that statement sounds.
Furthermore, in Pommes’ debut they have only a short and sweet ninety seven minutes to project this on screen, and quite frankly for all that Spirit of Ecstasy has to say, that is still a tight timeframe to convey a message of this magnitude and the sheer amount of arcs and tonal discourse to come together. To that degree, it could be said that this creation doesn’t quite have a final resolution or ending which is probably a fair statement to argue. That being said, with the director of where this vehicle is going and specifically regarding the character played by Pomme, it could not feel more accurate of a representation of where this character now goes and evolves towards, being unknown and somewhat ambiguous but goes with new found knowledge and experience. One of small but several sentiments this feature grapples with and pulls off, and while it is indeed incredibly deep and layered to a degree in which the viewer will have to hang on, it does deliver on those sentiments to a sufficient, often emotional and engaging degree due to the fabulous outing from lead performer Pomme.
