[marron]Summary[/marron]

The film The Midwife (Martin Provost, 2017) shows two women who go through a crucial stage in their lives insofar as they become aware of how time goes by. On one hand, Claire, who has just lost her job as a midwife, falls into Erôs´ wings in order to start giving birth to different kinds of knowledge. On the other hand, Béatrice, who at a time was Claire´s father lover and afterwards abandoned him, appears as a connoiseur of love matters and shares her last days of life with her former lover’s daughter. In her farewell she will leave behind her belongings, her body and even her own essential being. Nevertheless, she will also leave an anonymous letter addressed to Claire. In the center of this “folded” letter the prints of a kiss are to be discovered by Claire. In this way the film represents how Platonic eroticism runs along the paths of body, soul, knowledge and writing, in other words all the instances which, under the guise of the “folds” of a text without exit, give us the possibility of giving sense to our existence.

[marron]Keywords:[/marron] Plato | Blanchot | Love | The Midwife