Split-screen framing turns a shared apartment into two separate rooms of decline in Vortex, Gaspar Noé's account of an aging couple's final chapter.
What is Vortex about?
Françoise Lebrun and Dario Argento play a husband and wife spending their last days together as her memory fails and his health follows close behind. Vortex follows their day-to-day routine inside a cluttered Paris apartment, tracking small tasks — medication, meals, phone calls with a worried son played by Alex Lutz — as the couple's world narrows. Noé shoots much of the film in a split frame, following each of them separately even when they share a room, and lets the 135-minute runtime unfold at the pace of the couple's own slowing days. There is no score pushing the mood; the apartment's clutter and the couple's routines carry the film instead.
About the cast
Lebrun, known for decades of French arthouse work, and horror director Dario Argento, cast here as an actor rather than behind the camera, anchor the film with performances built on physical detail rather than dialogue. Alex Lutz, Jean-Pierre Bouyxou, Kamel Benchemekh, and Corinne Bruand fill out the smaller roles around them.
Context & significance
A Belgium–France–Monaco co-production, Vortex sits apart from Noé's earlier, more confrontational films; it trades shock for a patient, almost documentary attention to what daily life looks like as two minds and bodies fail at different speeds. Critics responded warmly, and the film holds a strong reputation among the director's work for its restraint. The split-screen device, used throughout rather than as an occasional flourish, keeps both halves of the marriage visible even in the scenes where husband and wife have stopped truly being able to reach each other.
Watching Vortex on Ktime
K-Time carries Vortex with Persian dubbing and Persian subtitles, giving viewers the option that suits them best. The page is free to read without logging in, and watching the film itself only requires a quick K-Time account login, through an interface built in Farsi for Persian-speaking viewers abroad.