Our Private Lives
Nov 12, 2011
(Denis Côté, 2007, Canada, 35mm, 82 min)
Seattle Premiere!
Free for members!
Three years before Catfish, Denis Côté was already exploring that most modern of romances: The online affair. Our Private Lives tells the story of a Bulgarian couple (played by real-life Bulgarian couple Anastassia Liutova and Penko Gospodinov) who decide to meet in person for the first time after a lengthy Internet liaison. True to form for Côté, they meet in an isolated cabin in rural Quebec. In this stunning exploration of loneliness and intimacy, Côté employs every trick of guerrilla filmmaking. The minimalist aesthetic forces attention to the lovers’ relationship, and their desperate longing for companionship in a vast and empty landscape. Liutova and Gospodinov’s chemistry intensifies every push and pull as their insulated experience becomes vulnerable to eerie intrusions from the outside world.
"The Stranger Suggests: The films of the French-Canadian director Denis Côté are challenging, but only a coward registers all challenges as bad. We must not be cowards in the case of Côté’s films. We must confront and experience them as fully as possible. They deserve our effort. The difficulty in Côté’s cinema is not in the style (manner) but the substance (matter), and this substance primarily concerns the limits and fragility of human morality." —The Stranger
“Easily one of the most audacious films of the past year.”—Matthew Hays, Montreal Mirror