Guilt and Forgiveness
Fifty years ago, Paul Schrader wrote the screenplay for *Taxi Driver* and, shortly afterwards, made Richard Gere a star in *American Gigolo*. His most recent films, including the superb poker drama *The Card Counter* (2001), have all premiered in Venice, where he was honoured four years ago with a Golden Lion for his life’s work. Now he is at the Lido with his new film, screening out of competition, a film whose title lives up to its promise.
In *The Basics of Philosophy*, Jack Huston plays John, a philosophy lecturer at a college in the Midwest. He is working on a book about Spinoza and is having an affair with his beautiful colleague Becca (Sofia Boutella). When his father (Bill Pullman) dies, John’s world is thrown into turmoil. Memories of a sexual assault on a 14-year-old piano pupil resurface and leave him unable to find peace. At the time, his father had ensured there was no scandal by providing a generous scholarship. When John encounters his former victim at his father’s funeral, he is tormented by feelings of guilt and is forced to confront questions about his sexual identity.
Traumatised protagonists who must come to terms with their guilt and their past are a recurring theme in Schrader’s films. “I grew up in a Calvinist environment, shaped by the idea of divine predestination and concepts such as original sin and guilt. That continues to shape me and my films to this day, whether I like it or not,” as Schrader said at the press conference.
For the philosophy professor John, the rationalist Spinoza is his intellectual role model. Human beings should leave emotions and passions behind and base their lives on reason. But how can one be redeemed from guilt and find forgiveness? That is the central question the film poses, without providing an answer. Paul Schrader combines sophisticated philosophical reflections with the dilemma of a man who can no longer live up to his own intellectual standards. Furthermore, the Algerian-French dancer and actress Sofia Boutella, playing the lover Becca, is reason enough to watch “The Basics of Philosophy”.
Violence and Passion
The protagonists in Cédric Kahn’s film “15/18” (international title “A Place to Heal”) have little regard for reason. Wild emotions and aggressive reactions dictate their behaviour. The setting is a psychiatric institution for young people aged between 15 and 18. What at first glance appears to be a documentary is in fact the result of meticulous preparation. Together with his co-writer Kahina Le Querec, the French director spent six months researching everyday life in the psychiatric ward, attending individual and group sessions as well as all manner of complementary therapies, and cast his characters on the basis of these observations. “From this source material emerged characters deeply inspired by reality: passionate, tireless healthcare professionals whose resilience was often shaped by their life experiences; overwhelmed and disoriented parents; and, above all, wounded young people – at once childlike and remarkably mature – who were driven by self-destructive impulses, yet possessed an overwhelming vitality.”
Malou Khebizi, who plays the 16-year-old Lucia, spoke at the press conference about how much the young actors had rehearsed in order to act freely and spontaneously during the shoot. One scene is particularly striking: Lucia completely demolishes a therapist's office and bites the psychiatrist, who is trying to calm her down, so hard on the hand that you can see the marks of her teeth. Lucia loses her temper because Enzo (Kenji Peyran), after a brief affair with her, is now more interested in her fellow patient Eloise (Patience Munchenbach).
The teenagers are all, in their own way, confused and disoriented, victims of difficult family backgrounds. “15/18” is a precise social study that never becomes sentimental, but instead observes, with documentary accuracy, everyday life within an institution that is largely overlooked by society and often treated as a taboo.
Cédric Kahn is a director who does not shy away from controversial subjects and is reminiscent of his fellow director Laurent Cantet, who passed away last year – particularly in his approach to working with young people in *Entre les murs* (*The Class*, 2008), which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes just under 20 years ago.