What a brilliant way to start off this year’s festival with “Irène.”

A beautiful memoir put into film by the elderly French director, monsieur Alain Cavalier, who used a handheld video camera to shoot his old journals filled with memories of his beautiful wife “Irène”, their deep relationship, while spanning the rooms of the house they were staying at before her sudden death. The random pictures of Irène scattered around the place and the narration of the director with his aged and at times vulnerable voice were truly heartfelt; talking about those hidden images, the forbidden ones and the ones in his own mind as opposed to those frozen in frames. My favorite quote, however, was when he mentioned, if love happens, it’s silly for it to end.

I left the theatre with a strong feeling of satisfaction and anxious to watch it *again* next week to round off my 2009 festival experience with a movie I totally loved.

S