The science of dying

>> Arto Paragamian takes the mortal plunge with Two Thousand and None

by MATTHEW HAYS

Montreal filmmaker Arto Paragamian managed a serious coup when he landed John Turturro, the darling of the indie American film scene and often regarded as one of the country's finest screen actors, to take the lead in his latest film. Anticipation, naturally, has run high about the film, Two Thousand and None, and whether Paragamian's unique sensibility, demonstrated in his short films and first feature, Because Why, would mesh with Turturro's considerable screen presence.

The good news about Two Thousand and None is that, by and large, the collaboration works. Turturro, as a tortured, humourless scientist who finds his memory lapsing soon after learning he has a terminal illness, fits the role beautifully. He is caught between vague memories of his ex-wife (the film opens with their divorce), his parents and his brilliant career. Complicating matters considerably is that he soon doesn't even remember that he's dying.

Paragamian's style is pleasingly obtuse; the director takes us into new territory and thankfully never lapses into the kind of cheap slapstick often marring we're-facing-mortality-sooner-than-we-thought movies (think The End). Instead, Paragamian takes us through Turturro's most intimate moments, hovering between his new girlfriend and his ex-wife (played by Turturro's actual wife, Katherine Borowitz).

Turturro, apparently entering a bizarre second childhood, is soon reviving his parents' personae, who bicker about how he's turned out, Turturro caught in between them, Woody-Allen style. He soon decides he must exhume their remains and bury them in their homeland of Armenia. This kicks off the film's absurd journey, one made all the stranger by the fact that Turturro's memory, and ultimately his identity, is always in question.

Two Thousand and None is by no means a perfect film. There are some pacing dilemmas, in particular some passages in the film's final third which bog down the flow of the finale. But Paragamian treats his subject with care and respect and the result is a complex, intricate portrait of a man facing his own end. The film is testimony to the fusion of Turturro and Paragamian's talents. :

Two Thousand and None opens Friday, Oct. 20