Director: Elliot Rafael Engberg
Writer: Elliot Rafael Engberg
Cast: Filip Lipiecki, Angelika Kujawiak
Running time: 20mins
Algos is a film which more than lives up the the director’s billing. According to Elliot Rafael Engberg’s note submitted with the film to IFL, he aims “to evoke emotions” through his films, “be they positive or negative.” Having just come through the harrowing 20 minutes that were Algos, I couldn’t help but nod along. There are definitely plenty of negative emotions which it has drummed up in me – and I would not recommend you watch it if you are of a sensitive disposition, or indeed if you are triggered by the subject of suicide.
Algos is an emotionally raw story about the guilt, fear and anguish of Ellis (Filip Lipiecki) as he processes the death of his late partner Gaia (Angelika Kujawiak). Sometimes this takes the form of bitter-sweet memory sequences familiar to viewers of ‘tear-jerkers’ such as The Fountain or Jack Fall – the couple embrace before growing clues let us know that all is not well, gradually cluing us into the grim bigger picture. At other times, it verges on horror – with the increasingly angry and demanding spectre of Gaia returning to torment Ellis in his most vulnerable moments; a physically disintegrating cadaver reflecting the fading consciousness he knew before the end.
As the non-linear story unfolds, we learn in sparse detail that Gaia was suffering from a form of early-onset dementia. We also see Ellis putting on a brave face, while struggling to process what this means – and ultimately fail to engage with what his ailing partner wants. Filip Malec’s cinematography does some great work when bringing this disconnect to life. A sun-lit breakfast scene in which he pushes a bottle of pills to Gaia, while insisting through gritted teeth “we’ll get through this” is juxtaposed with a shadowy sequence in which his deteriorating recollection of Gaia seethes “WHY CAN’T YOU LET ME DIE?”
The makeup work of Monika Trymbulak deserves a huge amount of credit for the way these scenes play out. Her work utterly transforms Gaia – in a way that actor Kujawiak’s performance slightly struggles to – and moves the duality of the character beyond a dichotomy of being ‘sweet peaceful memory’ or scary shouting ghost, to a much more disturbing, nuanced place – a mixture of physical pain, distress and understandable frustration.
Perhaps the most understatedly chilling moment is when Ellis refers to a set of sketches Gaia produced of him while she was alive. As he pins them to the wall in sequence, we see a clear downward spiral in her ability to perceive her lover as he was. As her recollections of him drift away, so each portrait becomes more distressed and abstract. But this is not only a reflection of Gaia’s condition – it is a record of Ellis’ own declining mental health, and one which hints at the despairing ending which Engberg’s script is building toward.
Whatever form the story takes, it is never an easy watch. Personally, I think that’s appropriate given the subject matter, but there are others who may not. Whether or not you agree with the concept of assisted dying when it comes to degenerative illnesses such as dementia, the film’s conclusion does not seem especially concerned with helping those left behind to process their grief – and could subsequently be tarred as melodramatic, or even exploitive.
For all the risks as Engberg’s script takes, there is also a distinctly conventional strand of this story at play when it comes to gender, which people would be in their rights to take issue with. This is another film where a man – and it is nearly always a man grieving for a woman – is left twisted and bitter by the loss of a lover whose needs he neglected while commanding them to get better. The ‘twist’ on that old formula, is that usually that heteronormative story sees the woman objectified as a means for the man to learn and grow as a person. Here, his shortcomings in empathy lead to his ultimate destruction – spluttering and gasping for breath, with a distinct lack of hope for what comes next. But even so, there may not be enough space granted to Gaia herself to present herself as a three-dimensional character, for some viewers to buy that.
Possibly the biggest issue comes with the film’s central performance, though. Filip Lipiecki’s physical transformation is less obvious than Gaia’s, his makeup limited to slightly hollowing his cheeks, and giving him a longer beard than before – so his emotional transition needs to be clearer. But beyond howls of anguish, there is not enough authenticity in his performance – particularly when he is supposed to be conveying warmth, when he seems distinctly uncomfortable.
Overall: 4 stars
Overall, however, I have to praise the team behind Algos. They swung big – and mostly connected with material which in another artist’s hands could have been extremely distasteful. Engberg and his crew have taken a story about dementia, mental health, death by suicide and bereavement, and put together a film teeming with emotional textures, and moral nuances. It’s an undeniably risky affair, but one which I think has paid off – producing one of the most upsetting and disturbing films I have seen in years.