CANNES, France — Gaspar Noé is a Cannes Film Festival fixture, but this year, he’s arriving just under the wire: After the director shot his new film “Vortex” in April and May under a cloud of secrecy, he rushed to complete it in time for a festival premiere.
Maybe it’s fitting that “Vortex” arrived at the end of the festival, since Noé is chronicling what happens at the tail end of our lives.
Though Noé has sent a jolt through past festivals with provocative projects like “Irreversible,” “Climax,” and the pornographic 3-D film “Love,” his new film exudes a different, more contemplative vibe.
I also had a sudden brain hemorrhage a year and a half ago and I almost died of it.
When you get close to those situations — a car crash, a disease or whatever — the problem is not if you should have an afterlife, which of course I don’t believe in.
I would come and talk to the grandma and she says, “Who are you? You’re not my grandson.” I remember giving different answers to the same question, because as a kid, you can have fun with it.
Let’s try to do something that could be playful in its form.” Then I found this concept of shooting the movie with two cameras, and each camera is following one of the characters as if their lives were both complementary and separate.
And so one morning, I met him at his place, I came with this 10-page script and we watched “Love” together, which was probably not a good idea.
But in their cases, they have all this future life in front of them that they want to play with, even if it’s not long.
“Irreversible” was probably my meanest, dirtiest movie and that was my only commercial success to this day! And the one that could have turned into a success was “Love,” but it was sold to Netflix.
In America and Europe, anyone who wants to jerk off and doesn’t know where to find a magazine at their parents’ home just puts on Netflix and sees the erotic movie that is recommended.
I was very touched when I saw “Amour.” My mother was in the process of dying, and I think I never cried more in a dark theater than when I saw that movie.
If you’re a director, your movies are now shown that has a code key where if you don’t have the number, you cannot open that hard disk.