Cages (2008) - film review

Eve and Damien live a passionate love affair that is so intense, so solid that it feels as though it could last for an eternity.  But then disaster strikes.  Eve, a paramedic, is seriously injured in a road accident.  Her physical injuries are superficial but she remains in a state of shock, unable to speak for long after the accident.  Damien, the owner of a thriving bar-café, becomes so frustrated with not being able to communicate with Eve that he begins an affair with another woman, Léa.   This is more than Eve can bear.  Using her medical knowledge, she takes Damien prisoner in the hope that she can make him understand how she feels.   Just how far is she prepared to go to revive the love that had once filled both of their lives to excess...?

Cages is a remarkable debut feature from Belgian filmmaker Olivier Masset-Depasse, who had previously distinguished himself with two short films, Chambre froide (2000) and Dans l’ombre (2004).  It is a love story like no other, darkly poetic in its portrayal of an obsessive passion that transcends the familiar cinematic approaches of eroticism and melodrama.  A film that manages to be both impressionistic and expressionistic through its individualistic camerawork and design, Cages conveys the awesome power of romantic love with such blistering intensity and realism that you cannot help being totally absorbed by the story it tells.

It helps that Olivier Masset-Depasse has the support of such talented actors as Anne Coesens and Sagamore Stévenin, who throw everything into their performances.   Coesens is extraordinary in her portrayal of the woman who has lost the ability to communicate with her partner.  The frustration and anxiety build to a crescendo as her character fights to save the one thing that she holds dear, but in doing so risks losing it forever.  Even though she has next to no dialogue, Coesens succeeds in conveying the anguish and rage that consume Eve and propel her on her desperate course.   Meanwhile, Stévenin shows us the other side of romantic love, the gentler, more subtle side that ultimately saves the relationship and helps Eve to recover all that she has lost, but only after a terrible long journey into night.  

Original to the point of weirdness, but never losing its sense of reality, Cages is one of those strange films that bobs around in your head long after you have seen it.  It has strange echoes of Jean Genet’s Miracle of the Rose and Jean Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast, yet it has a lyrical quality that is unique to itself.  The most enduring image it offers – of the naked Damien shackled helplessly to his bed, completely in the power of his adoring Eve – is a potent symbol for the most mysterious and potent of all human relationships.  We are reminded that romantic love is more than the fulfilment of our deepest desires. It is a kind of prison into which one blithely walks and from which no one can escape easily and intact.

© filmsdefrance.com 2009

Write a review for this film...

What do you think of this film?