"You want something and you have something else. You want to go somewhere and you go somewhere else. You want to be somebody and you’re somebody else. I become what I see". Metamorphism, acoustic Bermuda Triangle, mirror neurons, spatio-temporal fusion, and thoughts short-circuiting: welcome to the stranger than strange, bewitching and wholly extraordinary world of Else [+lee también:
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ficha de la película] by French director Thibault Emin. An apocalyptic and proto-philosophical film buoyed by stupefying special effects, unveiled in a world premiere within the Midnight Madness section of the 49th Toronto International Film Festival, and poised to suck the audience into the heart of a staggering vortex which goes far beyond its initial appearance of anecdotal, psychedelic oddity.

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"We’re going to end up buried alive". Anx (Matthieu Sampeur) and Cassandre (Édith Proust) have only just met at a party and slept together in the former’s apartment when an unknown virus starts to spread, leading to much scientific speculation on TV shows and a strict lockdown as decided upon by the authorities. And what initially resembles a skin disease soon turns out to be a far bigger existential problem: objects are fusing with humans and the epidemic can be passed on to others with just a look. Holed up in an increasingly shrunken space and soon only in spoken contact with a few sparse neighbours via the building’s air duct, Anx and Cass try their best to survive…

Unfolding highly methodically (based on a screenplay penned by the director in league with Alice Butaud and Emma Sandona) and under the cover of sci-fi cinema, the story prepares the ground for its microscopic study of otherness inside four walls: Cass’ eruption into Anx’s isolated universe, mimetic emotional contagion, feelings blossoming, fear of losing one another ("we can’t look into each other’s eyes anymore") and of suffocating, sacrifice ("hit me in the chest"), the desire to be as one with one another... It’s an underlaying exploration of a couple who are nestling into one another, like Russian dolls, enveloped in a shroud of occult philosophy (theories of evolution, creation, life and death, mutation, Pascal’s wager, passing over to the other side…) that’s brilliantly concealed within an incredible genre exterior, which slowly reveals the extent of its fascinating nature as the film progresses, and which culminates in a grandiose and Dantesque finale.

Naturally, there’s a touch of madness and genius in this movie, a kind of cinematographic psychosis which might be compared to Cronenberg, Lynch, Tsukamoto or Polanski when it comes to The Tenant and Repulsion, for example. In this sense, the film requires a certain level of open-mindedness ("we’re going to have to hurt one another") and patience, much like a trip whose effects are somewhat delayed. Above and beyond the film’s proto-philosophical core (which is sometimes quick to flirt with the grotesque), its visual form, as overwhelming as it can occasionally be, is undeniably exceptional, buoyed by wonderful work on the hyper-sensitive atmosphere and on the movie’s special effects. With this incredibly special first feature film, Thibault Emin proves beyond contest that he’s gifted with a real voice and has undoubtedly created a cult film.

Else was produced by French firm Les Produits Frais together with Belgium’s Wrong Men. World sales are entrusted to WTFilms.