The Mouth Agape
Directed by Maurice Pialat
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1h 27m
Directed by Maurice Pialat • 1974 • France
Starring Nathalie Baye, Hubert Deschamps, Philippe Léotard
One of cinema’s greatest and most profound meditations on mortality, THE MOUTH AGAPE observes, with striking unsentimentality, the final days of a terminally ill woman (Monique Mélinand) as those around her—her philandering husband (Hubert Deschamps), aloof son (Philippe Léotard), and worried daughter-in-law (Nathalie Baye)—attempt to carry on with their lives as they await the inevitable. Through unflinching long takes, Pialat crafts a masterpiece of human observation that says as much about life as it does about death.
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