Fay Grim

This story about the attractive Fay, mother of a 14-year-old boy and wife of Henry, who hasn’t been seen for seven years, loosely follows on from the film Henry Fool (screened in Karlovy Vary in 1998). Back then, Fay was the bored sister of Simon who has been in prison for a number of years for helping Henry escape the law. It’s not entirely clear what Henry has on his conscience, perhaps nothing, or perhaps he’s mixed up in far-flung international espionage and has compromising information on assorted government activities worldwide. Contacted by the CIA, Fay is entrusted with the task of getting hold of her husband’s encoded diaries. Feverishly scanning New York, Paris and Istanbul, she becomes involved in bizarre and dangerous situations with equally bizarre people who appear more like intangible beings from a fantastic dream. The film is the point of intersection of an ingenious and ostentatious approach to genre, in particular, the political thriller format, with its eerie Lynchesque atmosphere and existential ruminations on the precariousness of all life’s certainties. (source: catalogue Karlovy Vary IFF)