Photo: Lionel Baier's Stealth
"Babies suck at your thoughts like giant mosquitoes," says Lionel Baier the character in Lionel Baier the writer-director's Stealth. And pretentious, self-indulgent films like this suck the life out of international art-house cinema. For his follow-up to Garçon Stupide, the Swiss filmmaker delivers what his narrative's alter ego calls "auto-fiction," a blending of the genuine and made-up that, in this case, finds Baier recreating and embellishing personal memories in some sort of vanity project run amok. His sophomore film's plot involves a journey of self-discovery embarked upon by Lionel, a gay, Swiss radio host with a loving boyfriend and supportive parents, and Lionel's sister Lucie (Natacha Koutchournov), a pregnant malcontent, after the duo learns that their great grandfather may have been Polish. Nick Schager
"Babies suck at your thoughts like giant mosquitoes," says Lionel Baier the character in Lionel Baier the writer-director's Stealth. And pretentious, self-indulgent films like this suck the life out of international art-house cinema. For his follow-up to Garçon Stupide, the Swiss filmmaker delivers what his narrative's alter ego calls "auto-fiction," a blending of the genuine and made-up that, in this case, finds Baier recreating and embellishing personal memories in some sort of vanity project run amok. His sophomore film's plot involves a journey of self-discovery embarked upon by Lionel, a gay, Swiss radio host with a loving boyfriend and supportive parents, and Lionel's sister Lucie (Natacha Koutchournov), a pregnant malcontent, after the duo learns that their great grandfather may have been Polish. Nick Schager
