L’Inconnue
A gripping French thriller about a man who, after having sex with a mysterious woman (Léa Seydoux), wakes up in her body, whilst she appears to have vanished. And the strangest sex scene of the year is yet to come.
A highlight of this year’s Cannes Competition, the third feature by French filmmaker, actor, and screenwriter Arthur Harari (co-writer of Anatomy Of A Fall) is a moody, existential body-swap puzzler, drenched in atmospheric dread.
After David (Niels Schneider), a withdrawn photographer, attends a raucous party and tries a mysterious pill, he locks eyes with a woman he vaguely recognizes (Léa Seydoux), leading to a backroom hookup. The next morning’s hangover, however, reveals that he has somehow come to occupy the woman’s body, setting him on a frantic search for answers. He manages to learn that she is a German actor named Eva, and discovers that rather than a traditional swap, a young terrified woman named Malia is, in fact, now housed in David’s body. As David/Eva and Malia/David are forced to grapple with the psychological toll of a disembodied existence, the film’s daring narrative grows evermore labyrinthine and unsettling. While garnering deserved comparisons to the likes of Antonioni, Rivette, Lynch, and De Palma, the film’s ambiguity and sense of despair feel uniquely attuned to the multiplicities of our present day. (source: www.tiff.net)