The Rapture

Lydia works as a midwife and takes her work seriously. She has just separated from the person she was with for a long time and has told nobody. Her closest friend Salomé is pregnant. Lydia is there at the birth. The baby is born. One day she takes the baby out and meets someone in the street. The man asks whose the baby is and Lydia gives an answer. Then she does not correct it. The lie grows and her life begins running as two separate stories. Iris Kaltenbäck writes and directs. Hafsia Herzi plays Lydia. It is a French production and the director's first feature. The film was shown in Critics' Week at the Venice Film Festival. The form is retrospective; the events are told by someone, and who the narrator is becomes clear toward the end. The matter it treats is loneliness; the narrative does not build Lydia as a criminal and does not explain what she did. The birth and hospital scenes were shot realistically and the professional detail is inside the narrative. Hafsia Herzi's playing carries the film and the character says almost nothing directly. The ending is hard and the narrative gives no consolation. Who it is for: viewers who like French psychological drama and quiet narrative. Who it is not for: the subject is uncomfortable, the pace slow, and the character unexplained.