Review: Forever (2009)

[Mark R. Leeper]

                              FOREVER
                (a film review by Mark R. Leeper)

     CAPSULE: Polish filmmaker Heddy Honigmann does a
     photo-essay of the people who come to Paris's Pere
     Lachaise Cemetery to visit dead relatives and/or
     some of the world's greatest artists who are buried
     there.  Much of the film turns into a study of how
     the dead live on and inspire the living.  Sometimes
     this film is on target and sometimes it is just a
     little over the top.  It is an ambitious effort that
     does not always work.  Rating: high +1 (-4 to +4) or 6/10

Heddy Honigmann takes an extended look at Life, Death, Art, and
Beauty as viewed from and in relation to the Pere Lachaise
Cemetery.  This burial ground, also known as the East Cemetery, is
the largest in the city of Paris.  Being the cemetery of Paris, it
is the resting place of many of the great artistic people of this
city of art.  Some of the luminaries whose graves are found in this
beautiful, ornate burial ground include Frederic Chopin, Oscar
Wilde, Marcel Proust, Maria Callas, Pierre Abelard and Heloise, Max
Ernst, Amedeo Modigliani, and (in a less classical vein) George
Melies, Yves Montand, Simone Signoret, and Jim Morrison.  The
cemetery is now a park for quiet contemplation, and it draws people
 from all over the city.

Honigmann interviews visitors many of whom have some special artist
whose resting place they go to.  One man initially detested the
writing of Marcel Proust but converted by his wife now presents the
writing of Proust to others in the form of comic books.  Others
take inspiration from the tombs of their heroes who are dead.  One
man interviewed has a love of Amedeo Modigliani, whose elongated
images of women seem to have an ethereal light about them.
Honigmann finds one after another.  In between she shows us nearly
endless images of people caring for graves by pouring water on
flowers from plastic drinking bottles or dusting tombs.  Or she
will show one visitor standing in silence for minutes while behind
we hear only the sound of traffic.  Someone complains that a grave
of a loved one is too close to that of Jim Morrison and therefore
gets a little too much traffic and noise.  Elsewhere we see a
memorial to Paris citizens who were "deported" to Nazi death camps.

The whole feeling is one of admiration of the exquisite beauty of
the cemetery and long interludes of luxuriating in the
magnificence.  This is great at first, but presently it becomes a
little oppressive.  We go from delicate statuary to stunning
displays of flowers.  A little of that goes a long way.  Some who
come to this same destination each day seem to "live, like a hair-
dresser, in the continual contemplation of beauty," as George
Bernard Shaw put it describing his vision of Hell.

But the visitors do come to sit in the park, to meditate on the
loveliness, and to visit their dead loved ones.  Some talk to the
dead.  There are certainly macabre aspects to this film.  One
Honigmann talked to was a mortician who daily decorates the dead,
making them up for their last exposure to their family and friends.
He takes his day off among the dead.  Elsewhere the camera focuses
in on a spider larger than one would expect in the City of Paris.

The film really starts and ends with Yoshino Kimura, a pristine
young pianist who plays Chopin flawlessly.  She visits the tomb of
Chopin and finds motivation from him.  He seems to live on through
her and she seems a perfect model of being dedicated to her art.  A
little surprisingly, the IMDB lists 41 acting credits for her so
music is at best a part-time pursuit.

At times the film seems a little pretentious, but FOREVER is a
reasonable, not perfect, meditation on art and beauty and the
relation of the living artist with the dead who have contributed to
his art.  I would rate FOREVER a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale or
6/10.

Film Credits: <http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0906743/>

What others are saying:
<http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10008403-forever/>


					Mark R. Leeper
					mleeper at optonline.net
					Copyright 2009 Mark R. Leeper