Enjoy The Drama

Lou (Maggie Caporal) and Tacy (Tatiana Grasso) have split up. This we know from the narration and from scenes of Lou arriving in an empty flat, scenes of her cleaning, scenes of them both cleaning and packing away a last few once-shared possessions. But as the story of the day's events in told, we also see scenes of a different nature: a happy, optimistic young couple enjoying their home. Bodies in the almost-present, tensed, mindful of the space between them, mindful even when they choose to give it up; bodies past, relaxed, uncaring. Outside, snow is falling. The days of summer are gone.

Perhaps leaving a once-loved home and saying goodbye to a relationship are not so different. Light shines in through big windows, illuminating the bare wooden floors, suggesting a warmth that is no longer there. In memories, the empty rooms are filled with furniture and the clutter of life, the unique expression of shared lives that will never intersect like this again. Lou reflects on happy time and feelings of love, but we see arguments, see the women pulling one another around, at the more frequently tolerated end of physical abuse. Lou remembers things turning sour and we see smiles and gentle kisses; all these things are cut together, inseparable, all or nothing.

Lud Mônaco's camera moves fluidly through the apartment, which is just one of many on a crowded street, any number of which could have witnessed similar love and loss. She lets the viewer feel like a voyeur but also like Lou, who is suddenly looking at it all from the outside, observing her own behaviour as much as Tacy's. Turning the past into a story so that life can begin again in another place.

Though Lou's thoughts may drift back to this place any number of times in the future, what's done is done. Mônaco knows exactly how much to show us, and knows when there is no more to be said.