In southern Japan, the erupting Sakurajima volcano dominates and threatens to devastate nearby towns and cities. From there, Pierre Carniaux asks his friend Yusuke Oba what he would miss most if every­thing were to vanish. A hazy reverie then unfolds from a man who expresses nostalgia for a disappea­rance foretold....

Anyone who ventures to film the very old (Pascale Bodet’s grandmother is 99, almost a century) runs the risk of seeing the spectator’s eye caught by the picturesque side of very old age. Worse still: the film is found to be “comical”, “tender”, “touching”. Although Presque un siècle is a...