Kiyoshi Kurosawa, know for delivering both dramas (“Tokyo Sonata“) and horror/thrillers (“Pulse“) takes a turn towards fantasy with his next effort, “Daguerrotype,” which is gearing up for a World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. It’ll mark the director’s first French-language film, but he certainly has some strong help in front of the camera.
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Starring Tahar Rahim, Constance Rousseau, Olivier Gourmet, and Mathieu Amalric, the film tells the story of an employee of an aging photographer, whose photographs of his daughter grow increasingly disturbing, in a story that offers a bounty of intrigue. Here’s the synopsis:
The aging photographer, Stéphane (Olivier Gourmet), still in mourning, is obsessed with taking life-sized daguerreotypes. This process, commonly used in the early years of the medium, needs a long exposure, requiring the subjects to remain motionless for extended periods of time. (Nineteenth-century superstition also held that the process gave eternal afterlife to the people captured on film.)
Stéphane’s new employee, Jean (Tahar Rahim), gets caught up in an increasingly bizarre web involving his boss’ alluring daughter, Marie (Constance Rousseau), who often poses for her father in scenarios that begin to disturb Jean due to both their subject matter and their duration. He is soon dealing with Marie’s desire to escape this prison. Meanwhile, Jean is also identified by developers as someone who could influence the reluctant and crusty Stéphane to sell his considerable land holdings.
Just like many films hitting TIFF, “Daguerrotype” doesn’t have a U.S. home just yet.
