Hold Me Tight

Grief is a compelling theme in cinema. Indeed, it's a subject that is persistently explored in the arts - grief is inevitable, all-encompassing and unforgiving: it is intertwined with time, and can only be experienced in time. But what version of time is commonly associated or portrayed with grief, but a linear one? In Serre moi fort (2021) by actor-turned director-Mathieu Amalric (you may know him from his performances in Le scaphandre et le papillon and The Grand Budapest Hotel), there is a singular subversion of this trend, and though non-linear time as a concept has been around awhile now, in cinematic language, in this masterfully done work, it has appeared anew, and so we arrive at an unconventionality.

"Serre moi fort" or "Hold Me Tight", adapted from an unpublished play by Claudine Galea, tells the story of a woman, played by the phenomenal Vicky Krieps (is it a coincidence?), recounting her departure from her family... or does it? The film's description suggests as much. Without revealing too much and risking spoilers, I can say that the description aptly encapsulates the essence of "Serre moi fort", and more broadly, the central conflict of the art form itself, which lies in its mysteries, riddles, puzzles, and the struggle for definition - in this case, the definition of grief.

Grief can be seen as a state, a reaction, or a series of reactions to loss. And what is loss but an event that has occurred? In cinema, and in real life too, loss is perceived as something that has passed. Even though this is our usual perception, the true expression of grief is never fully captured - we may cry, we may scream, we may categorize it into stages, but the internal experience is not easily discernible, if at all. I believe that films have the potential to portray grief as something diverse: a variable, so to speak. This is what "Serre moi fort" has achieved to perfection, in my view: through experimenting with filmic sequencing, it is able to present grief as a malady that may lessen in symptomatic intensity over time but resurfaces, again and again, in tender moments, in lucid desperation of a long day. "Serre moi fort" also depicts grief as hallucinations, delusions, and projections, working similarly to nostalgia in enabling you to revisit the past, modify it, and learn from it. It is unreasonably visual, seen through the inner eye - which, perhaps, the medium of film can best convey to us.

So long as one knows grief and has grief, like Clarisse does.