After Love, the follow-up to The White Knights from director Joachim Lafosse, is a tense and heartbreaking post-marital drama about a couple with twins who have decided to break up, but haven’t quite managed to sever all their ties, starting with their home. Marie (Bérénice Bejo) and Boris (Cédric Kahn) still share their small but luxurious bourgeois apartment, even though Marie has repeatedly asked Boris to move out.
Set entirely in their apartment, Lafosse finds meaning in the space and how they inhabit it. In wide shots, we see how lived-in the apartment is, full of history and memories. Yet Lafosse keeps the central couple in separate frames, passing each other without ever engaging, as if they’re separated in time if not space. Yet there are moments of tenderness, around the dinner table or in an impromptu dance with their children, where we see how difficult it is for them to let go even though it’s too late for anything else.
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After Love screens in the Contemporary World Cinema section on Tues. Sept. 13 at 6 p.m. (TIFF Bell Lightbox) and Thurs. Sept. 15 at 4:45 p.m. (Isabel Bader Theatre).
