"This year's stoic and sensitive drama Frank & Louis takes us behind bars, a place we've been many times before at this festival, but to shadow the taxing work of inmates taking care of those who have dementia, a specifically difficult job in an already difficult place. Petra Volpe, the Swiss writer-director, who last explored a far more known form of caregiving in exhausting nursing drama Late Shift,"
"As with her previous film, there's real rigour to how she zeroes in on the grind of under-appreciated labour, but while Late Shift was more naturalistic and experiential, Frank & Louis is far more formulaic and emotional, a clearer bid for the heartstrings. It's a topic that's hard not to get emotional about, the slow loss of one's mental abilities, something many of us might be horribly familiar with, and it's a tough, rather hopeless experience to witness on screen."
"But he signs up to a care program as he awaits his parole hearing, hoping his involvement might soften the hard edges of his crime. It's caregiving as a form of rehabilitation and I was reminded of last year's far darker HBO documentary The Alabama Solution, which showed how inmates were forced to take on the role of rehab counselor former addicts trying to save the lives of those still in the grip."
Frank & Louis follows inmates who care for fellow prisoners with dementia, centering on Frank, an inexperienced prisoner serving a long sentence who joins a care program while awaiting parole. Petra Volpe makes an English-language debut inspired by the Gold Coats peer support program at the California Men's Colony. The film focuses on the grind of under-appreciated caregiving labor and contrasts a more formulaic, emotional tone with the naturalistic approach of Volpe's earlier Late Shift. The narrative frames caregiving as a form of rehabilitation and highlights tensions around untrained inmates performing demanding care roles.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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