ABSTRACT BY BIRGIT GLOMBITZA & UTE HOLL

This panel investigates the tension between unspectacular everyday production design and its metaphorical mobilisation in cinematic portrayals of dementia.
Drawing on The Father (Florian Zeller, 2020) and Vortex (Gaspar Noé, 2021), two film scholars analyse how ordinary domestic interiors are used to spatialise cognitive decline. Both films are set in familiar apartments that initially appear neutral and psychologically inhabitable. In The Father, subtle spatial shifts and acts of subtraction undermine continuity and orientation; in Vortex, accumulation and clutter materialise memory as an oppressive weight. In both cases, production design operates metaphorically while remaining grounded in realist, everyday environments.

The panel asks whether this metaphorical ambition affects the nonchalant quality of the everyday. Does the mundane remain ordinary once it is made to carry conceptual meaning, or does it become retrospectively legible as design? By addressing this question, the discussion probes the limits of metaphor within realist production design and reflects on the fragile status of the everyday in contemporary cinema.