Meanwhile on Earth
There are no answers, no body to be buried, no chance to say goodbye and no closure for Elsa and her family, her elder brother, Captain Franck Martens, having vanished during a space mission with no explanations, she having given up her ambition to become an art student in Paris to settle for working as a nurse in a dementia ward and living with her parents, keeping them close and doting on her younger brother Vincent.
Sitting alone at night, gazing up at the stars and down at the lights of the town, something changes, a strange vibration; finding a vortex of calm in the wind, Elsa hears the voice of her brother Franck, then another voice telling her that her brother is safe and that he can be brought back, but she must follow the instructions precisely, creating a path for others who will come to Earth alongside him for whom she must find host bodies.
Written and directed by Jérémy Clapin, Meanwhile on Earth (Pendant ce temps sur terre) stars Megan Northam as Elsa, communicating with what is apparently an extra-terrestrial intelligence with which she tries to reason, tries to bargain, realising that she has little sway over it, asking for her cooperation but knowing that she has no choice but to obey if she wants to see Franck again and that it has the power to compel her if it so wishes.
Her parents trying to offer support, Annick (Catherine Salée) is also the head nurse at the hospital, trying to maintain a clear divide between her dual identities as mother and also manager, while Daniel (Sam Louwyck) sits in the basement playing his classical music loud and sharing his spliffs with his daughter, both of them concerned but struggling through their own grief and she unable to tell them of the circumstances in which she has become trapped.
The promise that five entities does not constitute an invasion of little assurance when Elsa cannot know that is the truth, like a trail through the forest which is only clear once it has been walked the pathway must be created physically, forcing Elsa to enlist the help of her lumberjack friend Augustin and his colleague Jordan (Nicolas Avinée and Yoann Thibaut Mathias), a mistake which creates other problems even before she considers the moral dilemma which must be resolved.
The selection of the candidate hosts given to her, there are candidates, her fading patients of little personal autonomy, the homeless drug addict, the brother of the man who assaulted her in the forest, but there are no easy answers and any decision is one which she must live with, Meanwhile on Earth a slow passage of time which offers no easing of pain suddenly measured against a ticking clock, Elsa a woman who has struggled to find her path but who is now charged with creating one for others, or closing it forever.
Glasgow Film Festival continues until Sunday 9th March
