There is a scene in Belgian writer-director Zoé Wittock’s feature debut that sees its heroine having an intense erotic encounter with an anthropomorphised oil spill. The oil – viscous black against a stark white background – caresses and engulfs her naked torso. The dripping fluid belongs to “Jumbo”, a fairground ride at the amusement park where the socially awkward Jeanne (Noémie Merlant of Portrait of a Lady on Fire) works. Jeanne doesn’t want a human boyfriend.
Neither Jeanne’s manager, Marc (Bastien Bouillon), nor her mum (Emmanuelle Bercot), with whom she still lives, can quite believe it. I couldn’t either, though Merlant’s performance is committed, and the film takes her romantic and sexual fixation with the ride seriously, immersing the viewer in her dazzling, neon-lit world.
