‘Nobody’s Violence’ Locarno Review: A Drifting Soul In Search Of Meaning

Mira, the protagonist of the new film by Canadian director Denis Côté, is an enigmatic, elusive figure who travels Canada’s back roads in near silence, carrying out a rather unusual job. It takes a while to grasp exactly what her mission is, but little by little it becomes clear that her task is a heavy one: she helps people die. The film never fully explains the mechanics or logistics, yet we come to understand that she receives a name and an address, drives from town to town, and presents herself to strangers, offering them a drink laced with some kind of poison that brings almost immediate death.

Mira (Larissa Corriveau) moves from place to place in a minivan, accompanied by a scruffy dog she calls Mario, often sleeping inside the vehicle. During the film’s first act, we watch her at work: she meets those seeking a form of illicit euthanasia, prepares the mixture, administers it, and then moves on. Each encounter has its own particular tone, but Mira seems able to carry out her duties without emotional involvement. Along the way she crosses paths with others: a man who appears to be following her, a woman who fixes her with a stare in a shop, and a third figure, Ludo (Philippe Rebbot), who approaches her van at night to bring her food and drink. Their connection hints at a complicated past.

Only later do we learn more about how this line of work is organized, but what matters in Côté’s film is less the procedure than the tone—calm yet quietly unsettling—that he brings to it. Shot on grainy 16mm, with desaturated colors and a protagonist whose large eyes seem perpetually distant, Nobody’s Violence gradually shapes itself into the portrait of a woman who appears almost dead while still alive. A sexual encounter with a cheerful man at a party briefly lifts her spirits, though not for long. Around the midpoint, Mira reaches what seems to be the operation’s “headquarters,” and from then on the film subtly shifts. Its mood grows more contemplative and mysterious, and Mira begins to see her actions—and perhaps her own life—in a different light.

Without much ornament, Violence du corps de l’autre is a film about death and how people reckon with it—even those who are healthy and not facing the kind of dark horizon that defines most of Mira’s clients. The director of Paul and Curling, among many others, gradually draws us closer to Mira as she observes a new set of encounters—her “bosses” and their circle of friends are peculiar, with a curiously hedonistic way of relating to others—and her world slowly begins to shift. By the time she returns to her work, her attitude toward it is no longer quite the same.

This is a spare, contemplative film, with few words and a great deal of (icy) atmosphere: the story of an “avenging angel” whose relationship to her work—and to her own existence—evolves minute by minute. “Through Mira, I explore living alongside death while holding onto hope, love, and freedom,” the director has said. “This journey embraces mystery and uncertainty, seeking not answers but the fragile forces that bind us to life.” That journey—one that is also deeply personal for him, as the film is dedicated to his mother—is what Nobody’s Violence ultimately presents: confronting death every day, at every turn, and realising, before it is too late, that remaining among the living still carries some meaning. Perhaps inexplicable, but meaning nonetheless.