SCARRED HEARTS

Inspired by the eponymous autobiographical novel by Max Blecher, who died at the age of 29 after ten years of suffering. In a sanatorium on the shores of the Black Sea, a young Romanian man with osteo-articular tuberculosis lives bedridden for years on end, trapped in a plaster corset. The love and hope inspired by Solange, a former patient who has recovered fully, his reflections on mortality, and his interactions with other patients form a self-contained, poignant, promise-laden world. The power of the psyche in the face of physical deterioration, and large doses of anti-Semitism give the film philosophical and political depth.