Sarah and Antoine are on the verge of breaking up, weakened by their hectic lives, balancing work and their two children. One day, Simon, the eldest, confides in his mother that he hears voices. While Antoine struggles to grasp the extent of the problem, Sarah decides to support her son. How far will she be willing to go for love?
Does the young hero actually hear those voices ?After all,in the late Middle Ages ,it happened once to a young peasant girl from Lorraine. She said she heard three saints' voices ,asking her to come to her king's rescue.
In Pierre Jolivet's "simple mortel" (1981) does the hero actually hear strange voices who ask him to save the planet ,or is it something worse ?the extra-terrestrials have replaced those holy men and women ;it does not make a big difference
As the doctor explains to the baffled Sarah: For he who has faith......
no explanation is necessary .For he who hasn't ,no explanation is possible. So she concludes :hallucinations.
The omnipresence of water in the film is fascinating; after all, life begins in the amniotic sac (the French calls "poche des eaux" =waters bag): the film begins at the seaside, and includes a bath tub, an aquarium where an unknown creature lives , then the river Seine in which mom jumps first ,then urging her son to join her (both fully dressed); the mother, a simple housewife who works as a translator of Chinese and whose marriage is on the rocks, slips ,slowly but inexorably ,into madness : Cécile De France 's metamorphosis is impressive and the last picture, ominously beautiful,remains open ;you can interpret it according to your sensitivity ; mom-and-son with the rest of the family have gone full circle for the ending which takes place in front of the huge sea.
Slow-moving and not very accessible ,not thoroughly satisfying,the movie takes us ,nevertheless, off the beaten track , far from the feel-good , from the trite story of the couple on the verge of breaking up ,or from the umpteenth story of the father/husband /mother /wife/lover/you name it who comes back out of the blue after so many years ; if it were only for that,whe would have to thank Miss Elise Otzenberger.
