“When there’s a river, take a boat,” says Elijah (Alex Lawther), a free-spirited US man specialising in hypnosis who has come to the 2024 Paris Olympics to prep athletes. With this slogan, he tumbles headfirst into the life of the stressed-out, frustrated young woman Elisabeth (Titane [+lire aussi :
critique
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interview : Julia Ducournau, Vincent L…
fiche film]’s Agathe Rousselle), a hard-of-hearing, self-taught tech expert who holds a US passport but has lived all over the world, now calling Paris home. Directed, produced, co-written (with Thomas Keumurian) and lensed by Laurent Slama, A Second Life, a slim film of 77 minutes, has enjoyed its world premiere in Tribeca’s International Narrative Competition. In it, the intersection of Elijah’s and Elisabeth’s lives brings something organic and beautiful after their dichotomous attitudes challenge each other’s worldviews.

This is Slama’s third feature after making two under a pseudonym, Elisabeth Vogler, which is both a nod to the character from Ingmar Bergman’s Persona and also the full name of the protagonist in A Second Life. With its thematic similarities, the film would make an easy double feature with That Summer in Paris [+lire aussi :
critique
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interview : Valentine Cadic
fiche film], which also takes place during the Paris Olympics and bears a similarly heartwarming, carefree quality; both put an emphasis not simply on romanticising the city, but instead balancing the reality of urban chaos with the beauty that can be found in its intimate corners.

As Elisabeth works for a rental agency for tourists, she clings hard to this demanding job she needs to extend her visa, all while battling picky, inconsiderate clients. Elijah tries to win her over with his happy-go-lucky attitude and the help of his two newfound friends (Suzy Bemba and Jonas Bachan), all of which she is initially put off by. But when she loses her hearing aids in a crowd, she’s forced to let go for a moment, only to be pulled back into her head a while later. At times without Elisabeth’s hearing aids, we hear the world heavily muffled, which elevates the vibrancy of the rest of the sound design and orchestral music by Jean-Charles Bastion that simmers in the background throughout the film.

A Second Life carries a joyous spontaneity to its narrative, where characters must ride the wave of the unexpected. Slama’s camera, on the other hand, is extraordinarily focused: the filmmaker’s cinematography stands out, where the Parisian surroundings distort at the borders of Elisabeth’s reality, as if everything not within her grasp is slipping away. With a gently wandering lens, the multihyphenate exercises his impressive painterly sensibilities, echoed through the portrayal of Monet’s Water Lilies artworks through the film. He turns up the saturation in this semi-heightened reality, letting the camera bathe in the lights of the city and all their colours: the teal of the Metro trains, the bright blue of the Olympic electronic billboards, the green of the trees and the orange glow of the sunset.

The film’s brevity is also its strength: perhaps Elisabeth and Elijah are both seeking the same things, just in different ways – and that ephemeral encounter is the catalyst that they need for a new life to begin.

A Second Life is a French production staged by 21juin Cinéma, and co-produced by RnB! Films and Loulou Films. Its international sales are managed by Paris-based MMM Film Sales.