– Guillaume Nicloux catapults us into a nightmaresque misadventure in the Canary Islands with this caustic genre film infused with a powerful artistic style and unrestrained strangeness
Pom Klementieff in Mi Amor
“Are you ready for an unforgettable experience?”. When Parisian DJ Romy – who’s about to perform a set in a club in Maspalomas – makes this promise to her friend Chloé who’s come along as a tourist, she doesn’t know how right she is, because a frightful, hellish descent is about to unfold beneath the blazing sun of Gran Canaria and in front of talented Guillaume Nicloux’s camera, in his new movie, Mi Amor, which was unveiled in a world premiere within the 55th IFFR’s Limelight line-up. Always perfectly in his element in unsettling contexts, the French filmmaker throws himself heart and soul into this toxic and unhinged thriller, brilliantly acted by Pom Klementieff and Benoît Magimel in particular.
“I am at ease, my body is relaxed, I feel good.” This mantra which thirty-something Romy (Pom Klementieff) silently repeats to herself before falling asleep doesn’t stop her from needing sleeping pills. But right now, it’s time to lounge about in the hotel where she’s sharing a room with her friend, Chloé (Freya Mavor), a beautiful girl with striking red hair who needed a bit of time out on account of a relationship, which is always on the verge of ending, with her highly insistent boyfriend, Romain. A randomly selected brochure and a stroll at the base of the impressive El Magnifico Roque Nublo (one of the biggest rocks in the world, a basalt monolith and an ancient place of worship for the indigenous Guanches), sea swimming, easy conversations by the pool with strangers (some more switched on than others, such as the woman claiming that Hitler didn’t die, he actually hid somewhere local before heading to Brazil), dancing in bars (though Romy doesn’t drink)… Everything is going really well until Romy’s gig in Caserio. Chloé (who’d announced she wanted to pull a guy) disappears. The next day, Romy starts to worry and goes out looking for her, helped by Vincent (Benoît Magimel) who’s in charge of Caserto and who knows his way around the shady local underworld. But between setbacks and strange places, the situation worsens…
Offering a dive into the deepest kind of darkness, with passport theft, crocodiles, snakes and parrots, a bloody goat left as a warning, local thugs fighting over the nightclub scene, an atmosphere of authorised illegality on all levels, so-called magical places (a canyon) and a morgue, the film depicts a colony of vampires in broad daylight, a world of half-ghosts, over the course of a police-style investigation (featuring red herrings, stakeouts and intuition) conducted over several days by two protagonists who’ve been somewhat obliterated by life and who’re in the process of getting to know each other. Favouring a hyper-realist atmosphere (notably featuring incredible omnipresent music by Irène Drésel and Sizo Del Givry), Guillaume Nicloux delivers a wickedly bewitching and sombrely mischievous work, playing with genre codes with restrained perversity, right up to the film’s apocalyptic finale.
Mi Amor (a title inspired by a dealer’s t-shirt depicting these words and a skull) was produced by Les Films du Kiosque. Le Pacte are releasing the film in France on 6 May and are also steering world sales.
(Translated from French)
