TIFF Movie Review – Triptych (2013)

Divided into three chapters the film commences with Michelle who is being taken home from a psychiatric hospital by her sister Marie; she is far from being cured as the schizophrenic continues to hear mysterious insider her mind.  Michelle returns to a part-time job at a book store and the world of the psychologically disturbed woman is thrown into further unrest when her sibling introduces a German neurosurgeon named Thomas who is to be her husband.

The second chapter follows Thomas who is unsettled with his life and German wife; he is explaining the consequences to Marie of the brain surgery she needs to have a tumour removed; she will need to learn to speak again which is devastating revelation for the patient who is also a jazz singer.  The doctor decides to attend a concert and ends up having an affair with Marie; the new relationship seems to steady his shaking hand.  And finally the third chapter deals with Marie as she recovers from her surgery and deals with a sister who runaways from the psychiatric hospital.  Everything is brought to a full circle with the marriage of Marie and Thomas. 

Reflecting the mental unrest experienced by the characters are the colours which are almost drained to a colourless state and the distorted reflections.  There is a great transition between Maria being scanned by a MRI machine to the scan of the brain on a computer screen.  An effective dramatic story point occurs when the singer comes to realize that her father’s voice is part of her own.  Opera music and religious imagery are plentiful as well as some ghostly hallucinations that are worthy of Roman Polanski (Repulsion).