'Passages'
He may be an unhinged narcissist, but his aesthetic is really on point.
Unbridled Narcissism, Unruly Cinema
Tomas, the protagonist of Ira Sachs’ new film, “Passages,” is a bastard. Sachs, who co-wrote the screenplay with Mauricio Zacharias, isn’t shy about this. The very first scene shows Tomas at work as a film director. When an actor doesn’t move his arms in the exact way our hero wants, he quickly becomes exacting and cruel, berating the performer in front of a crowded set.
This, viewers quickly learn, is not a one-off. Tomas is a relentless narcissist with the same morbid visual appeal as a car crash. Played by the charismatic Franz Rogowski, he spends much of “Passages” bouncing between his husband, Martin (Ben Whishaw), and a new flame, Agathe (Adèle Exarchopoulos). He manipulates both of them, all the while insisting that nothing is ever his fault. The film is just as messy and horrifying as it sounds. It’s also a pleasure to watch.
After the film shoot that opens the movie — the film within this film is, cheekily enough, also called “Passages” — Tomas has a steamy hookup with Agathe. The next morning, he goes home to Martin and crows about having sex with a woman. (This seems to be either his first time doing so in a very long time, or his first time ever.) Though at first Martin seems understanding, and their relationship appears primed to accommodate some amount of infidelity, Tomas quickly pushes things too far. Having bled Martin dry, Tomas latches onto Agathe.
It must have been difficult to assemble a trio of actors who could be equal parts sexual and sympathetic, but Sachs and his casting director, Judith Chalier, hit pay dirt with Rogowski, Exarchopoulos, and Whishaw. Though Agathe begins the film as little more than a cryptic, intriguing hot girl, Exarchopolous is eventually able to flex her range, lending the character depth and vulnerability. Thanks to Whishaw, who see-saws between eroticism and pathos with impressive flexibility, Martin is more than a long-suffering cuckold. Rogowski sashays along the boundary between magnetic and deplorable. Without a bird’s-eye view of his bullshit, viewers might even be as drawn to Tomas as his unwitting lovers.
The setting has its own intoxicating role to play. This is the cultural elite’s modern Paris, where things like sexual orientation and marriage don’t matter nearly as much as which restaurant you choose. Martin, a printmaker, begins an affair with an emerging novelist who prefers not to be called a writer. Martin and Tomas share a gorgeous Paris apartment — complete with art book-laden, wall-to-wall shelves — and a much-fought-over countryside cottage. Even Agathe, a schoolteacher, has surprisingly airy digs. Sachs, who co-parents his two children with his artist husband and the filmmaker Kirsten Johnson, said in an interview with IndieWire that “the generation that this film is written about doesn’t look at labels in the same way.” That’s probably true. It’s also probably true that wealth and total creative freedom are powerful tranquilizers against everyday neuroses.
That injection of class consciousness aside, this critic is hardly immune to the visual delights of a Parisian artist’s apartment. In the same interview, Sachs readily admits that the film is “both real and unreal” and is “trying to play with the pleasures of cinema.” Play it does. Even when it makes you cringe, “Passages” is invariably fun to look at, thanks to cinematographer Josée Deshaies and a skilled art department. This film is about hot people in fun clothes gallivanting through Paris. Said fun clothes, expertly selected by costume designer Khadija Zeggaï, include a mesh shirt, a Venice-Film-Festival-ready tux, and a dragon-print crop top. A sheer, scarlet dressing gown makes multiple appearances — on men only.
The fun’s in the experience, so if you like well-executed cinema, you should undoubtedly see this movie, ideally on a big screen. If you need your heroes likable, your characters relatable, or your sex scenes demure, then run along.
Run time: 92 min.
Not recommended if you: require a likable protagonist, are shy about sex, have an aversion to crop tops.
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