Guided by a deliberately monotonous first-person narration, French director Damien Odoul’s cryptic exercise in loneliness unscrolls like a visual diary. The opening half of the film has an observational documentary style, as the camera stalks about a secluded cabin in the woods where Theo (Theo Kermel), a young man with Down’s syndrome, lives with his photographer father. The line between nature and civilisation gradually erodes as the pair frequently roam around in the nude. Theo – or TO as he likes to call himself – even watches loud porn with his father sitting in the same room.
When the patriarch leaves for a work trip, the film sheds its realist veneer. From its tone of deference, TO’s voiceover morphs into impotent rage and resentment, as he speaks about a near biblical hatred towards his father. Forbidden desires and fantasies flare up like an unquenchable fire that annihilates any sense of stylistic as well as narrative coherence.
