There is a pretty good chance that a film like “Else,” the fascinating feature debut from director Thibault Emin that’s an extension of his short of the same name, is going to fly under the radar for many. This is a real shame because those who see it will find that not only does this film grow on you, but it burrows inside your very skin. Remaining mostly confined to one apartment as the world falls apart due to an unknown epidemic that’s taking hold, “Else” is a film you watch in a combination of awe and horror. As we see in all its gruesome glory what this disease can do to us, the film takes a plunge into something hauntingly beautiful. It’s a movie about the forces that consume anything and everything to make them into something that is a part of a collective. The more it expands on this, the better it gets, sweeping you up in stunning visuals that swallow you whole.
It’s also more metaphysical in nature, asking questions about the body, the self, where one begins and the other ends, as well as what happens when we let others into our life. It takes us into a world that is far bigger than us and often beyond easy understanding, creating arresting visuals that implant themselves in your mind.
The film, which premiered Monday evening at the Toronto International Film Festival as part of their Midnight Madness programming, follows the woefully awkward Anx (Matthieu Sampeur) who has recently begun an exciting if complicated new relationship with the far more confident and chaotic Cass (Édith Proust). In a script written by Emin, Alice Butaud, and Emma Sandona, we come to understand how the duo’s fundamental differences, while often seeming to be potentially insurmountable, actually work to draw them closer together. This will take on a whole new level of meaning when a previously unknown disease starts causing people to literally merge with whatever is around them. What is first just the two living together in an apartment starts to open up the possibility of living as one with all that this entails.
If this sounds impenetrable, it really isn’t as the film starts out in a rather straightforward narrative fashion. However, formally, it’s anything but normal. Utilizing often discomforting close-ups and spectacular sound design, we’re locked into the duo’s confined world. Their relatively new relationship is believable while still making clear they’re fundamentally different people in an almost profound sense, ensuring the erasure of the borders between them feels like a way of tearing apart our preconceived notions of what one can be. The flesh and blood we think of as being set in stone are more malleable, as if we’re tiny pieces of clay to be squished together. The more it explores this, the more the film takes bigger swings that keep connecting with something new, challenging us to keep looking even as what we observe may be painful.
Though the performances by its two leads deliver, the film really kicks into another gear when the more visceral yet vibrant body horror comes to the forefront. You can see the passion in every frame and disquietingly constructed effect that makes you question how Emin pulled it off. There is some regrettable yet thankfully brief futzing around with AI that’s noticeable early on (not the first film to do so, as “Late Night With the Devil” will remind you), but it’s the handcrafted stuff that leaves a mark. When the film shifts in style, adopting a black-and-white color palette as everything starts to merge together, is where it comes alive just as there is the potential the lovers could both soon perish.
Yet both stick together as they remain the only ones caring about the fundamental alteration that is coming for them. At the same time, while they’re alone in the apartment, there are others in their building, all of whom are increasingly starting to experience the symptoms of merging with things. Whatever warning this may give, it can’t save our two characters from the same fate. There is a beauty in that on a thematic level, as it’s about coming to accept that things are about to forever change, but on a purely visual level, the film is just profoundly breathtaking to behold. It immerses us into the strange details while also pulling back for striking wide shots that let us soak up all the ways that this new world being born is something uniquely, terrifyingly alive.
When the old and new are brought crashing together, the already transcendent and thrilling film becomes eerily contemplative in a stunning conclusion, breaking free of any and all boundaries. Whether you’re taken over by its vision will depend on how willing you are to open your mind to it, but it’s worth doing so many times over. Just beware when entering into it: you don’t know what pieces of you may be left behind and what you’ll take with you that wasn’t there before.
