Pour le réconfort

For all of us who have followed Vincent Macaigne’s career, we expected his transition to directing to be as full of anarchic capacity as it was present with his works in front of the camera. However, Pour le réconfort, his debut on this field, is a work with surprising accuracy: the tale about characters cloistered by the weight of their past, the uncertainty of their future, and Macaigne shoots them in an oppressive 1.33:1 format, a wise way of formally highlighting the claustrophobia of their narrative. A debut with an enormous maturity for a first-time director who will keep discovering new aspects about one of the most interesting personalities of this decade’s French cinema. (Gijón International Film Festival)