Death Valley, California. Years after separating, Isabelle and Gérard meet again in the suffocating heat in the middle of this dry and amazing landscape. Their son Michael, who committed suicide six months before in San Francisco, has sent them each a letter inviting them to meet up in this strange place, where he says he will appear to them. Wracked with guilt for having abandoned her son, Isabelle is determined to believe and persuades Gérard to come along on this mysterious journey…

Picture gallery

Formerly a quiet and strong presence in the French thriller genre thanks to Le Poulpe, A Private Affair and Hanging Offense, Guillaume Nicloux has meanwhile completely changed course – the overblown super-production Le Concile de Saint-Pierre starring Monica Bellucci, the comedy Holiday, the surreal Kidnapping of Michel Houellebecq, the bitter Nun. Valley of Love, shown as part of the official competition at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, goes even further in Nicloux’s abstract reconstruction of cinema: from a fantasy premise, the director crafts a mysterious and opaque film that seems to not make sense on purpose, just to provoke the audience. With an excellent soundtrack by Charles Ives, a wonderful set and apparently trivial dialogue carried by a solid team of actors – especially Gérard Depardieu – this movie is filmed with a radicalism and sincerity not seen in many years. But because he settles for a few banal, dreamlike visions, not taking his abstract questioning any farther, Valley of Love remains remote and unattainable. That is both its strength and its weakness.