"A fake spiritualist at the time of France's picturesque belle epoque pretends she is in contact with the dead lover of a grieving and creatively blocked artist but she has been secretly put up to it by the painter's wily agent, convinced that his client's ecstatic contact with this amour from beyond the grave will inspire him to recommence the production of hugely expensive paintings."
"The film is directed and co-written by Pierre Salvadori and the result is something like a moderate mid-period Woody Allen or Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit though Allen and Coward would surely have followed the obvious narrative possibility of the dead person disconcerting the conspiracists by actually speaking through this bogus medium."
"Anais Demoustier plays Suzanne, a young woman in a travelling circus, newly arrived in Paris, who in her saucy, spangly outfit on stage is the Electric Venus; as her hands float over two crackling Van de Graaff generator-type globes, she will kiss young men from the crowd for 30 centimes a time while the electricity of true love fizzes through their lips."
"While Suzanne is in the spiritualist's tent, grief-stricken artist Antoine (Pio Marmai) appears, demanding access to his deceased lover, Irene, a woman whose death he blames on himself, having cheated on her. Suzanne bluffs her way through a phoney seance and soon at the cynical instigation of cunning gallerist Armand (Gilles Lellouche) she is calling round at his sumptuous home, sneakily using contact lenses to fake her visionary-blind connection with the Great Beyond."
A travelling circus performer arrives in Paris and becomes involved in a staged spiritualist act. A grief-stricken artist seeks access to his deceased lover, blaming himself for her death after cheating. The performer bluffs through a phoney seance, then is drawn into a scheme orchestrated by a cynical gallerist. The plan uses deception, including contact lenses, to simulate visionary blindness and supernatural connection. The resulting comedy and farce center on art, grief, and manipulation, with the spiritualist performance designed to spark the artist’s creative return and justify costly paintings.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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