Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person | Dir: Ariane Louis-Seize | ★ ★ ★ ★
The inspiration to make her debut feature film came from Ariane Louis-Seize’s anxieties about death. The French-Canadian coming-of-age film plays with the Gothic genre and two very dark subjects to draw out black comedy.
Teenage Sasha (Sara Montpetit) is a young vampire with a serious problem of having such an aversion to actually killing anyone that her fangs haven’t even grown. Her family supplies her with baggies of blood but in order to force her to fend for herself; they cut off her blood supply.
Fortunately Sasha meets Paul (Félix-Antoine Bénard) who has had enough of a world where he doesn’t fit in. He admits to wanting to end his life for as long as he can remember but the thought of hurting his sole-parent mother stops him every time.
Sasha witnesses one of Paul’s aborted attempts to end his life and follows him to a support group for people struggling with the same issue. It is here that Paul and Sasha connect … even though Sasha is 68 years-old, she looks like she is a 17 year-old teenager.
The two teens are both facing death as they can’t connect with their respective worlds but they find a mutual desire to continue when Paul says that he would gladly give his life to save another person.
Ever the humanist, Sasha goes on a nocturnal quest so that Paul can fulfill his dying wish before the sun rises. He wants to front up to all the people who have tormented him recently and, even though he has a new-found confidence and Sasha’s support, not everything goes to plan.
This darkly hilarious film is being touted as an anti-Valentine’s Day film but as the two protagonists search for their places in their different worlds, it actually becomes something of a romance.
Lezly Herbert
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