Please note: This was screened in March 2025
This oppressive, beguiling adaptation of Marcel Proust's book The Prisoner probes the theme of possessive love.
The story follows a wealthy young man who obsesses over his girlfriend. But director Chantal Akerman asks who is really the captor? And can a person be considered a cage as much as a physical room?
Screening before the film will be Akerman’s short La chambre (1972), following this theme of confinement and a close examination of living space. This early short is composed of a series of circular pans around a small apartment, a movement echoed in later films including Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen’s Riddle of the Sphinx (1977), and more recently inspiring the end-scene of Charlotte Well’s breakout hit Aftersun (2022).