Laurentie

A youth named Louis lives in Montreal. He has no interests, real friends, or even dreams. His only hobby is perusing porn for the purpose of pleasuring himself. Louis begins to show signs of frustration. After moving to a new apartment he discovers that his new neighbor is his exact opposite: surrounded by friends, the good-looking young man is entertaining and obviously happy. His encounter with this guy evokes new impulses in obsessive Louis that eventually change his life. Laurentia is a drama which lays bare the absolute emptiness of life in contemporary society. The internal and external drama of Louis’s existential path is told through a refined, ascetic style employing long shots and a bare minimum of dialogue. Thanks to its formal aspects, Laurentia can be classed as spiritual cinema in that it offers a complex look at sex, death, and life’s spiritual dimension. In terms of its tone, the work is reminiscent of Carlos Reygadas’s Battle in Heaven (Batalla en el cielo, 2005). (Karlovy Vary International Film Festival)