I’ll do some math real quick. Premiering at the Rotterdam International Film Festival, 100 Seasons divided by 4 seasons per year equals 25 years. 25 years separate the two main characters, Giovanni (Giovanni Bucchieri, also writer-director) and Louise (Louise Peterhoff). We see them in the present leading very different lives, but both still deeply connected to artistic expression. In his small cluttered apartment, Giovanni relives his past glory as a ballet dancer and prepares for a music gig. Louise has a big minimalistically decorated house, an ex-husband who’s not Giovanni, and a teenage daughter. She’s also got the higher profile job of directing a production of Romeo and Juliet, which she considers to be Shakespeare’s worst play. Thanks to past Giovanni’s obsessive filming of their daily lives, we also have an abundance of real life (like really actual real life) footage of the two leads as a romantic couple when they were young extremely beautiful professional dancers in the 1990s.
The moments of vulnerability we see in Louise in the 90s footage are mostly erased in her present day self. She’s the sterner parent, a demanding director, and while on a date with a man she interjects with “wanna fuck?” I’m not sure if she says this out of boredom or sincere desire to have sex. Giovanni the character in the present day no longer controls the camcorder (although Giovanni the director is still the director). His hairline recedes, he wants to gain the body of Fight Club Brad Pitt in 40 days at a boxing gym, and he takes out a payday loan on his phone to buy a Gucci bucket hat from an aloof shop clerk.
In some of the 90s footage, a crying or sleeping Louise wishes Giovanni would put the camera down. Some of today’s scenes made me wonder if it was possible to exploit someone if the person you’re exploiting is you. The older Giovanni shows himself on the brink, in his underwear, flushing his pills down the toilet. In isolation, this story of struggling with mental illness veers into melodrama even if it does reflect Bucchieri’s real life experience. But when shown in contrast to the VHS footage of him as a young Greek god and the scenes where Giovanni gets to show off his otherworldly talent as a dancer, it forms an earnest backbone to the film that allows you to truly love Giovanni, not just admire him from afar.
The older Louise and Giovanni only interact in fantasy, in 18th century France or on a spaceship. In these scenes he admits through Louise that his French is crappy and his writing can sound like a “high schooler”. He allows himself to be goofy and corny. He performs a song on piano for a hushed crowd. He sings in English. He kind of resembles Jemaine Clement from Flight of The Conchords in the way his face moves and how he hits his high notes. It’s good but slightly comedic. Until he devastates you in the same performance with a few seconds of body movement that make you think God can exist. He disarms you and then disarms you again.
In one of my favourite scenes from any movie in my recent memory, Giovanni takes to the street as a Michael Jackson impersonator. Without spoiling anything, for me it completely captures the moth-to-flame nature of mental illness, the punishing danger mixed with irresistible attraction. And it made me laugh out loud.
Giovanni is a danger to himself, and the movie is very aware it can end one of two ways. It presents a sliding doors moment of Giovanni and Louise just missing each other on a train after so many years apart. They could be the tragic star-cross’d lovers of Romeo and Juliet but Louise hates that play. We see that sad ending get a polite smattering of applause on Louise’s opening night. Within the universe of one of the possible endings, present-day Louise dances again alone in her nice house. You should see this movie if you get the chance.
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