We begin looking at the galaxy before the camera zooms in, lingering on a man in a car. Again and again, he refuses an incoming call that interrupts the podcast he’s listening to. Although his driving setup is hands free, the irritation of the repeated calls takes his eyes off the road for a long moment, and his car slams into something. As he steps out onto the pavement, shaken, he looks back at what he hit: A woman crumpled in the road. The story jumps to her, and we see a day in her life. She’s a physicist working with a project that seeks to understand the creation of the universe. Her boss gives her the afternoon off, and so she decides to go out for a run, ending with her being run over by the inattentive motorist. After seeing her story play out a few times time-loop style, we’re introduced to another character, her ex. In a bid to tell her how he feels one last time, he calls and asks after some books that he lent her. However, when he makes it to her apartment, he’s disappointed to see that she just left them in a box near the door buzzers in the entrance of her apartment complex. After collecting the box and heading back to his car, he sees her about to go for a run and calls out to her. Desperate to avoid him, she darts into the street and meets her fate.
I spelled out a lot of the plot above (although I did omit the ending), but there is a lot of depth and nuance to this film that would take me several pages to effectively describe: The plot is central to this film, but it’s far from the only thing it has going for it. La Théorie de l’infini is a fun dramatic experiment in the idea of constants and variables. We’re shown the same story from slightly different angles or with slight deviations in composition. In a metatextual way, the story is that of the particles in an accelerator, of bodies in space, the mysteries of existence, of the creation and destruction of everything. The same woman discussing the findings of CERN’s particle accelerator, dark matter, god particles and such becomes a particle herself, attracted and repelled by others, such as her mother, boss, and ex.
Nominee for Best French Film at the Toronto International Nollywood Film Festival, winner of the best Sci-Fi Film at The Cinematic Arts Redemptive Entertainment (CARE) Awards and winner of Best Fictional Film at the Cinema Plan d’ensemble Festival, La Théorie de l’infini is a must-see for short film, drama, and physics fans. Samuel Rousseau gives us a master class in short drama, using scientific concepts as dramatic elements, and the film’s actors all put on outstanding, nuanced performances. If you have 25 minutes for a film, and you’re interested in French language cinema, La Théorie de l’infini is well worth your time and the price tag. The skill with which Rousseau tells this short story make me wonder what he could do with the time and resources to make a feature film.
