“Sick of me”: creator of the theater of bourgeois passions

The opinion of the “world” – why not

Presented in Cannes this year, in Faithless Choice, sick myself uses a device whose transparency whets the appetite: Sigine, a waitress in a cafe, lives in the shadow of her friend, a rising star of modern art who has gained a reputation for stealing designer furniture, which she hijacks for her artwork. Preparing for an exhibition at a prestigious Norwegian gallery, a young woman has just recovered from a traumatic experience and is unable to take the position of “artist’s girlfriend”.

Slowly going off the rails, ready for anything and especially anything to beg for a little attention, before sacrificing his own health: feigning food allergies, filling up on Lidexol, an anti-anxiety drug with a side. Results in causing severe skin rashes.

Sin claims to be suffering from a rare and incurable disease that is slowly eating away at his face: a progressive disfigurement in the middle of this clean world, which is a great idea for the film. Like the Elephant Man, she arouses the curiosity of relatives and journalists, being offered the role of muse for an “inclusive and unisex” brand, under the annoyed gaze of her lover, who sees her stealing the show.

Vanity Fair

Grand restaurant, vernissage, social dinner, photo shoots… sick myself Crosses the cleaned sets of this cultural bourgeoisie of the big cities of the West, the favorite animal of the “cinemoralists” of the moment. A little music that recalls the other, the music of the Swede Ruben Ostlund, a double networker and the president of the jury of Cannes 2023, which the 38-year-old Norwegian director Kristofer Borgl applies to everything: a certain way of presenting the scene, such as. A frozen image that must be broken by shame, horror, shame, chaos. cinema, as a theater of bourgeois passions, to remove the mask by its own power; A social world as obsessed as a vanity fair, where narcissistic ambitions devour each other, where one is ready to do anything for a quarter of an hour of Warholian celebrity.

Inner emptiness, emotional lack, atrophied narcissism, careerism, Borgli has a heavy hand when it comes to burdening his hero with all possible and imaginable flaws, to the point of making him the standard of sick individualism – a mission that succeeds. be too heavy for one character. Signe lacks the psychological coherence and impulsivity that will make you want to follow his mistakes to the end, enough probability that we project ourselves there. As it is, it is merely the backbone of a thesis that consistently trumps attacks on authorism.