Art should make us think, undermine confidence, show other readings that undermine beliefs. Indifference, lack of reaction, lack of debate are certainly not signs that they have broken through the armor that each of us wears. A few days ago, I was at the Giulio Cesare Cinema in Rome for a preview of Ira Sachs’ Passages, which will be released in theaters on August 17th. At the end of the film, after a confrontation with the director in the hall, in line for the toilet and on the street, people continued to be surprised, surprised, projected and tried to understand, justify or condemn. It was all “it seems to me that this is so …”, “but why did you decide to do it this way?”, “I have an absurd bump, I don’t want to get engaged anymore”, “This is a manly film”, “I found it honest and authentic, there is life inside.”
Thomas (Franz Rogowski) is a director, young and sexy, who uses his power over others as a charm tool. He has been married to Martina (Ben Whishaw) for six years, and their relationship has been damaged by habit. At a wrap party for his latest film, Thomas meets Agatha (Adele Exarchopoulos), a beautiful elementary school teacher. They end up in bed, and the spark of desire between them flares up so much that Thomas can’t help but tell Martin about it, leaving him with no real explanation. Agatha is pregnant. Thomas meets his parents, a troubled eccentric boy married to the man who will father their nephew. Ending a story is never easy, after the initial focus, the new shines less and lacks the solidity of what has been built over the years. We find ourselves in a violent, instinctive triangle where Thomas, more than anyone else, will be a slave to his desires, fears and needs, without questioning the consequences of his actions: in the opening scene he arrogantly gave orders to the extras, in his film, in the finale we find him hunched over and crying in a deserted corridor.
The film defines not only the idea of love and family, which distances itself from the standard, from what they would like to take as a model, but also the lack of transparency, the communicative emptiness that is the product of this time, where there are too few truthful and honest words, and often they remain submerged by what is agitated on the surface. Love is non-linear, the management of feelings is not linear, on the outside we are all exalted preachers, that clarity and calmness with which we are ready to criticize dissolve if we are inside the whirlwind. What Sacks has outlined is the lack of true emotional education, the inability to express our deepest feelings before they come out from within, oppressive and frustrated, in selfish/destructive forms. Passages is a real and suspenseful film, it tells about the imperfections, ganglia and failures of life, where desire is so overwhelming that each of the characters pays for its effects, actively (acting) or passively (subject). An open window that lets into the world the need for love and suffering, denoting its features.