Happy End

Illness is fine yardstick of friendship and human selfishness. One is never so alone or so abandoned as in times such as these. Szymon Zaleski’s Happy End is an absurdly funny catalogue of the red herrings that human generosity unsparingly lavishes on those struggling through a desperate situation and vainly trying to find a way out. Here the ill is a nasty cancer, a faithful although unwelcome companion that hangs on and spreads, whatever the medicine used. For want of a cure, the illness sets Szymon Zaleski on far-off travels across continents, from one healer to another, but also through time, into an imaginary world, in fiction films where he doubles himself, in the archives of space flights giving the illusion of being free of one’s body. But illness gnaws away at even the most deep-rooted dreams. (Yann Lardeau)