Paul est mort

On 8 August 2018, French philosopher Paul Eichmann dies, leaving his long-time partner, Brune Hellman, and their three-year-old daughter, Madeleine. Shortly after that, a young man comes to their door: Alexandre Muller, Paul Eichman’s son. Antoni Collot directed this baffling feature film, a piece that remains open to the four winds, refusing to close the door right to the end. The late philosopher Paul Eichmann appears every now and then, through scenes of dialogues, like so many sparks of thought, which compose the DNA of the film. Although it first looks like a classic drama, Paul est mort actually falls into the realm of “modal realism”, the logical theory propounded by philosopher David Lewis, according to which any description of how our actual world might be is also the description of how another possible world might be, in parallel with ours. So the film soon opens up to other possibilities: beyond the mere awareness of its filmic nature, Paul est mort treads many paths, as so many fictional possibilities that are all acceptable since they are parallel to ours. Then people and things become more complex and powerful, as though seen through a kaleidoscope. At times Antoni Collot relies on a narrative thread, at times he prefers to stray as far as possible from it. Yet the philosophical hypothesis – which is always taken seriously, even when it seems confusing – is ultimately what makes the argument relevant as well as clear. Then, based on a system of echoing possibilities, Paul is dead manages to create its own constellation: from one emotion to the next, and often both at the same time. (VP)