ex animo dicere LXXXIII

"It's often been said that cinema 'films death at work'. [...] To film loved ones is like claiming memory and defying death. I only understood that later, when death decided on being stronger than anything else. [...] The starting point of the film I'm making now is an image which doesn't exist, a forbidden image, therefore absent, that of a face I saw for a few minutes, that was then stolen from my sight. [...] A family film becomes a mausoleum, noting every step, every gesture, in a kind of death ritual. [...] How long do people remember every one of us? After two generations we're just shadows. When you add a third, at best we're prisoners of vague memories and stories. All our dreams, enthusiasm and hatreds come down to a few pictures saved by time. In a box I possess a disorder of photos, gathering men, women, children, whose name and blood I sometimes share. I didn't choose this community, but in some dark groundswell it made up what I am. [...] All families are imaginary. [...] Family films only serve appearances, stocking up scenes of christenings, birthdays, weddings, new births followed by more birthdays, more weddings... The baby grows up, it's Christmas again, they get married. [...] We barely venture into images in which nothing happens, where people are simply there, waiting for time to flow by, the time said to be 'deadly boring'", disse, desmontando-me qual puzzle de árvore genealógica seca, o narrador em Mort à Vignole, um dos curtas da coleção Exercices Spirituels do cineasta congolês Olivier Smolders, que nutre alguma fixação pelo tema morte e trabalha em cima de uma narrativa filosófico-ensaística que remete a alguma parcela de Jean-Luc Godard.





Alors, tout le famille sont imaginaire.




* imagens: stills da pirataria.