Sarah, a nurse in her 30s with a passion for jazz music, encounters someone who strikes her as a very peculiar man, while going to work one morning. Later, she meets the exact same person, but this time as a patient in the hospital where she works. While most of the other members of staff dismiss Dom as just another crazy man, Sarah’s curiosity is peaked as she interacts with her patient, who constantly talks about a red case that he used to be in possession of until recently.
‘The Red Case’, written and directed by Loran Perrin, is a film that manages to make its audience forget about life’s complexities and the various political and socio-economic concerns of day to day existence, instead narrowing its grasp to a few simple yet very humane emotions. This is a story about love, time, hope and irreversibility, but not one which ticks all the boxes containing the usual tropes – instead, the film crafts its own unique style and vision, and sticks to it up until the very end.
The film by Loran Perrin exhibits a tasteful balance of elements, and each one serves as a complementing force for the others. The story, characters, dialogue and music beautifully intertwine in a simple yet deeply moving experience, one that will stay with us for a long time. Both main actors perform their roles splendidly, and achieve a wonderful chemistry: from Sarah’s increasingly heightening curiosity to Dom’s protective instinct when it comes to the case, everything is brilliantly and vividly displayed.
Sarah’s return to the hospital, both in terms of how the scene plays out, as well as with regard to the meanings, remined us of a similar scene from Darren Aronofsky’s excellent ‘The Fountain’. The level of attention to details is arguably on the same level: Sarah’s lonely ride back home on an empty bus not only sums up her life, but also resonates with the newfound piece of information that completely changes what she knows and what she feels. Once again, the impact is achieved not by means of overcomplication, but by the constant maintenance of simplicity, not by overdramatization but by a continuous evocation of naturalness.
For its wonderful rendition of a heartfelt and deeply emotional story – the kind that makes one re-evaluate his or her outlook on the deepest and most intimate facets of one’s life and array of emotions, ‘The Red Case’ was awarded with the Film of the Month distinction in the October 2017 edition of TMFF.
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