AllMovie

Actress Irene Tunc was the wife of filmmaker Alain Cavalier; in 1972, she died in an auto accident that may have been a suicide. In the years since her passing, Cavalier has struggled to come to terms with his wife's death and the fact he'll never know for certain if she killed herself. Cavalier offers a deeply personal look into his memories of his wife and how he's learned to cope with her loss in the documentary Irene. The director shares stories of his wife's troubled youth, visits the places they lived (including the house where he last saw her alive), ponders his feelings about her life and if he'd still be happy with her today, includes footage of a recent stumble on a public escalator (and the wounds it inflicted) and muses that while he's grown old, she'll always be as young as she was the day she drove away. Irene was an official selection at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, where it was screened as part of the "Un Certain Regard" program.