August 32nd on Earth

In preparation for when Dune inevitably comes to Australian cinemas, I have resolved to watch every film by Denis Villeneuve. I’ve seen quite a few of his more prominent films already (Enemy, Arrival, Blade Runner 2049). Based on those, I consider Villeneuve to be my favourite director, which is my personal reason for wanting to watch the ones I haven’t seen yet. So I’m going to watch those in the order they were released and write about them.

Sidenote I’m also hoping to read the books of Dune first, but we’ll see how we go with that (not that that will be a series on here anyway).

Villeneuve’s debut film August 32nd on Earth, released in 1998, is a French-Canadian film (spoken predominantly in French) about a 26-year-old woman named Simone who, after sleeping through her car crash miraculously without getting severely injured, decides on making some pretty huge life changes.

She first quits her job in fashion since she has been overworked and little care has been given to her well-being despite how valuable she is. The next thing she does is contact her best friend Philippe and ask him to conceive a baby with her.

My interpretation as to why Simone wants to have a baby (aside from wanting to be a mother in general) is coming from a place of urgency. She almost dies at the beginning of the film, and I think it makes her realise…