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The Mouth Agape
The Mouth Agape
8.0
/10
1,102 Ratings

THE MOUTH AGAPE

La gueule ouverte

Directed by Maurice Pialat
France, 1974
Drama

Synopsis

Monique is dying of cancer, lying in bed in the apartment above the store her family owns. Her philandering husband carries on with life, her son remains aloof, and her daughter-in-law wonders if she is witnessing her own decline. They all struggle to express, or feel, their love for one another.

Synopsis

Monique is dying of cancer, lying in bed in the apartment above the store her family owns. Her philandering husband carries on with life, her son remains aloof, and her daughter-in-law wonders if she is witnessing her own decline. They all struggle to express, or feel, their love for one another.

Our take

Maurice Pialat never shied away from exposing the darkest corners of the human experience, and his third feature remains his most boldly confrontational. Unblinking in its surveyal of a sick woman’s final days, The Mouth Agape bears tough, unadorned witness to the realities of end-of-life care.