I need more time and possibly a rewatch to digest this completely but wow, what a vision. A dark, absurd, captivating vision that totals as a nightmarishly fantastical and enigmatic theatre musical brought to life on the big screen. An unhinged Adam Driver giving one of the best performances in recent years, layered in a complex multitude of subtexts, that accompany the film’s own multitude of subtexts. An incredibly towering work that stands out among a sea of films in a modern landscape of film that barely dares to be as bold, unique, absurd and distinct. 

Annette feels like such a special film, especially in this current landscape. Such an intimately personal work that is similarly larger-than-life with the personalities it becomes acquainted with. It’s almost hard to pinpoint what’s so incredible about Carax’s latest, but it’s just so refreshing in its blended visual-musical approach to storytelling; feels almost like vignettes of a mystical, fantastical, yet grounded nightmare playing as scenes of love, adoration and serenity, swiftly shifting tides into destructive waves of chaos, disparity and division, as we are first-hand witnesses to the fallibility and self-destruction of ego and its incapabilities.

Might be the first Carax work to truly resonate with me emotionally. A creatively, visually, audibly bold work that, for me, in some way finally helps me connect with Leos Carax’s often idiosyncratically remote and aloof emotional cues. There’s still so much to dissect here, about parasocial interactions, familial relationships and ego, but these lingering thoughts are helpful in leaving more space for rumination for further rewatches. I am still left with much to think about Annette and it’s many thematic connections, but safe to say I’m a big fan of what Carax does here. I quite loved it.