Tour Sur Margo (All About Margo) is an autofiction about a Parisian actress (Margaux Latour) whose life is a sea of disappointment. Her boyfriend of three years has stopped showing up for their relationship. Her old friends let her know she’s no longer liked and she’s changed. Even the rest of the crew for the film she is starring in are notably absent. Her co-star quit to sell groceries while the director and writer are too busy to show for their first meeting. All she has is a ticket to Portugal and a place to stay for three months in the location where the production will presumably be shot. As the first to arrive, Margo begins a routine of wandering the village as she grapples with an existential despair. The loneliness gives her time to practice her lines and she makes herself comfortable in the discomfort. Her peaceful, albeit numb routine is interrupted by the arrival of her co-star Hugo (Bob Levasseur), a bohemian improv actor who grates against her Parisian tightness. While the set-up seems like the plot of every rom-com ever made, the film doesn’t go there. Instead, the work follows Margo’s journey to release the darkness hiding her inner light.
The camera often follows Margo close up, with contemplative shots of light and water mirroring her states of mind. Other times it lingers on her face, catching her lips or teeth as if seeing her from the view of a loving, divine presence. She listens to podcasts and visits churches to try and better understand the role she’s playing of Mary — presumably the Virgin Mary. But this is not just a matter of study; she is looking for some justification as to why her life seems to have fallen short of its promise.
For a documentary, it feels much more like a fictionalized work, a psychological study reminiscent of Lars von Trier but without his undertones of violence and horror. This is not intended as criticism. Margaux Latour and Yann-Manuel Hernandez’s Tout Sur Margo is a beautiful work and the film left me in tears as it progressed towards its climactic scene. Perhaps it is just coincidental timing in my own life, but Margo’s search for more while in a palpably fractured frame of mind spoke to the circumstances of my own.
Tout sur Margo is at the RIDM which continues until December 1. Details about other films and the schedule can be found HERE.
