Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (2024)

Watched: October 2026
French language film
Directed by Ariane Louis-Seize

Really liked it! Cinematography was really nice, I liked the modern, realistic feel to the life of vampires, and the look into one vampire's experience, driven by emotion and introspection. It was nice for spooky vibes as well, with dark scenes and some spooky effects.

More thoughts below, but warning they will spoil parts of the movie, so only read them if you've watched it.

• Clown at the beginning is funny because I'm preparing for a clown-ish costume for Halloween a few days from now (more of a court jester than circus clown though). Also, obviously Sasha getting (emotionally) attached to the clown was the hint that she was going to get attached to Paul.
• Loved the inclusion of piano as her skill/interest. Funny how she was a skilled player before ever touching a piano before.
• When Paul swatted the bat toward the beginning, I thought it might have been some symbolism that he'd later hurt Sasha. Red herring though. Still a really interesting moment of the film. Ohhh, maybe it was to show "putting it out of its misery", which correlates to his idea later of helping people die.
• I did theorize, after her cousin turned JP, that Sasha might end up turning Paul eventually for some reason. That came true! Also at around 53 minutes, when I realized that she was getting attached to Paul, I guessed that the way she would feed herself would be by protecting Paul from someone who was threatening him. Also true!
  • Contemplation: Is it boring or satisfying for aspects of a movie to be predictable like this? Well, I think a predictable story should still be told, if it's a good story. Of course I like surprises and twists, but doesn't have to be all the time.
• Had a moment of thinking, "ohhh, they're both suicidal" (towards the beginning of course). (Because apparently if vampires eat human food, they die.) Of course that's what leads Sasha to the support group where she meets Paul. And the support group really did help them both to no longer be suicidal, ultimately.
• I like that they help each other.
  • Sasha, a result of her being avoidant of eating Paul, gives Paul an exciting night where she essentially pushes him to stand up for himself and confront his bullies / the people making life difficult for him. Also, simply by getting so close to his potential death, he gets closer to realizing he doesn't want to die. Sasha also calls him out on it: "if you want to die, why are you still here?". And, after he gets beat up, he looks at his wounds in the mirror - I feel like this is also him realizing he wouldn't want to get further hurt.
  • Paul becomes a friend to Sasha. She's always needed someone to get attached to, and maybe Paul is that for her. Kind of lonely without a companion, maybe. Someone she can feel compassion for. So I think he gives that to her. But also, more pragmatically, he brings a new outlook, a new perspective, to the life of a "humanist" vampire. He has the "seeking consenting suicidal" idea, that they can help people who want to die. So now Sasha can see a way to reconcile both her vampirism (need for blood) and compassion.
• Assisted suicide
  • Obviously connected. This was a topic of an introductory philosophy course I took in college. Is it moral to help someone die when they want to? The easy "yes" is when it's someone who is living with unbearable pain. (Similar to the bat that Paul mercy-kills.)
  • Much less clearcut and more controversial is for someone who is psychologically suicidal. My take on this has been: If there's any chance that their mindset can change or they can be rehabilitated in some way to no longer want to die, then absolutely no, their suicide should not be assisted or condoned. So, that brings the question of, when could you possibly determine that this wouldn't be the case (that they couldn't be helped to a better place)? I don't know. Maybe it's a belief that there is always a way to bring them to a better place. Certainly that's the hope/ideal of support groups (like the one in the film), hotlines, and therapy.
  • Given that last thought, I do wonder how the Sasha+Paul team will decide who they are okay assisting suicide for. I was never convinced that it was morally right for Sasha to have killed Paul, even when he was clearly asking for it. And Sasha of course saw that, and besides for getting attached to him personally, she felt the same compassion for him as she would for anyone else (given her quirk/flaw, according to the other vampires, of feeling compassion when seeing human suffering rather than feeling hungry), so when she suspected that it wasn't really right for him to kill himself, she knew she couldn't kill him.