"Vol de nuit"

Il vient doucement

festonné de lumière

se fondre dans la nuit

Vacille

s'approche

chasse la pénombre 

Qui parle de mourir?

l'homme rêve 

pesanteur

impatience

L'os blanc de la peur

l'odeur salée des femmes

le sang au flanc des bêtes

Atteindre le lieu de l'homme

dans un jardin 

enténébré de ronces

près des racines

lavées de mille pluies odorantes

Silence

tout respire

et se meurt

retourne au premier souffle

Il ne sait plus

qui est l'asile de l'autre

le temps est une trame

déployée

par Sa présence

Il fait froid

il fait nuit

il fait désir 

il fait fièvre

recommencer

"The Untrustworthy"

"Morlang", by Tjebbo Penning, 2001, DVD, Film Movement, 2005

Morlang is loosely adapted from the true story of a couple who has decided to commit suicide together, but only the woman died, for her husband did not really want to kill himself. Morlang is a chilly drama about love, betrayal and selfishness carried to an extreme. Set against the Irish countryside and the fashionable Dutch town of Rotterdam, Morlang is the story of a successful yet aging visual artist, and the life choices he made. His wife and artistic agent Ellen, no longer inspires him. Morlang is a complicated and very selfish character, who does not hesitate to manipulate people. He pushed his wife into having an affair with a rival artist, and when she did, he withdrew in his own world and finds solace in his new muse and lover Ann. Then Morlang's wife is diagnosed with a terminal illness, which is the crucial point of the story. The couple decides to commit suicide together, but Morlang who already has started an affair with another woman decides his art, not to mention himself, is too important to be sacrificed like that. Instead, he let his wife carried on with her suicide, while he happily married his mistress Ann. Lived happily ever after then? Hardly. 

Director Tjebbo Penning and writer Ruud Schuurman penned the sad story of a gifted and attractive man, with the disgusting ability to cut off his moral sense any time he feels like it. He betrayes his wife and lies to his new one. He deceives the ones he loves, but manages to remain likeable and successful in his artistry. At that point, one might ask how he does it. Alas, the movie provides with no satisfactory explanation. Instead, Penning's choice to circulate through Morlang's life with numerous flashbacks, taken from Morlang's point of view, only exacerbates the dubious subjectivity of the character. Who is he really? As the story unfolds, the viewer is left with the difficult task of making up his own mind. The only thing that seems to be clear in that movie - so to speak - is that Penning has not made up his yet. Beware of procrastination! It is as disastrous in personal life, as it is in movie making.

Penning's reliance on an overall dull colour palette, which is supposed to give us a hard feel, makes the misunderstanding even deeper. What, no moral crisis? No, even late, guilty feelings? A confession then? A glimpse into a deeply troubled, yet redeemable soul? Nope! What is left is a sort of visual hangover, the kind that leaves you wondering why you even bothered to watch this movie in the first place. Having written that, I also wish to add that - although the script is very disappointing - the cast is not. Starring Paul Freeman, Diana Kent and Susan Lynch, Morlang should have been a success story. What went wrong according to me is the tragic absence of a moral standpoint. Normally, it would not be that tragic, but it sort of becomes such in a story that is supposed to gives us clues as to why Morlang made the (bad) choices he made. Sadly, at the end of the movie, all I could think about was: who cares?

"Hora Vespertina"

Par tes yeux blessés 

je vois la vie qui sommeille

terres dénudées

arbres morts

paroles hors d'atteinte

Hora Vespertina

le soir vient

antiphonie

dans sa lumière

ocres et songes

Je sens qu'il me faudra garder

trace de ta chute

l'écho de ton passage

 

Me suffit t-il d'écrire

d'en aimer l'éloignement

dans mon sang

n'avoir en moi qu'un seul voyage?

Hora Vespertina

je ne connais de moi

que ces lacunes qui vous bouleversent

espaces  teintés d'insomnies

Je vais et viens

par toutes vos solitudes

vêtue seulement d'inquiétudes polychromes

adossée au sensible

Vigile...

quelle nuit pour dessiller nos yeux?

"What You Believe Becomes Your World"

"Somewhere in Time", by Jeannot Szwarc, 1980, DVD Anchor Bay, 2009

"Somewhere in Time" (1980), starring Jane Seymour, Christopher Plummer and Christopher Reeve, adapted from Richard Matheson's novel "Bid Time Return" (1975) is a movie which alone could easily become the material for another story. "Somewhere in Time", is the story of love transcending time and space. American playwright Richard Collier (Christopher Reeve) is given an antique gold watch by an elderly woman (Susan French), at the opening of a play at Milford College in 1972. She then told Collier "Come back to me", and simply vanished from his life. Eight years later, Collier who has become a successful playwright, is now fighting against the writer's block and on a more private note, is trying to make sense of his love life. He resolves to take a short trip alone, and ended up booking a room at the Grand Hotel, an old-fashioned resort located on Mackinac Island in Michigan. 

While waiting for the hotel restaurant to open, he wanders into the Hall of History, where he discovers the portrait of a beautiful woman - the successful actress Elise McKenna (Jane Seymour) - which literally bewitched him. He then decided to prolong his stay at the hotel, after having discovered that the old woman who gave him the gold antique watch eight years ago, and asked him to come back to her, was in fact Elise McKenna. From this moment on, Richard decided to do whatever it takes to return to the past in 1912, to find the woman with whom he has deeply fallen in love. Despite the fact that "Somewhere in Time" is somewhat flawed from the start, because of an annoying time loop - the gold watch - the story works wonderfully. It does even better, if you are like me a hopeless romantic. Who would not want to find true love, even if it means given up everything you have achieved in this present life?

What "Somewhere in Time" does for its audience, is to remind us that they are in fact values and feelings that transcend time and space. With its insistence on characterizations, rather than on special effects - no time machine for Richard Collier - or easy movie recipes, "Somewhere in Time", treats us into a gentle, intelligent and deliciously old-fashioned story, not to mention a refreshing view of a time where vulgarity and impatience would not have been regarded as social virtues. And this is largely due to Richard Matheson's way of relating to his own material. As there is in fact, a plethora of material around both Matheson's novel and this movie. 

For Matheson fans, I highly recommend to buy his novel "Bid Time Return", first published  in 1975. In 1999, there has been a special reprint edition of the movie edition of Matheson's novel: a hardcover, leather-bound slip cased one, with movie stills and all personally signed by the author. In addition to this special reprint, there is the movie Making Of, which is in fact a clever and inspired compromise between movie and novel material. Furthermore, it is possible to prolong the pleasure brought by this movie, by visiting Bill Shepard's website "INSITE" (International Network of Somewhere in Time Enthusiasts), at www.somewhereintime.tv, where you can order not only the Making Of of SIT, but also all kinds of movie memorabilia. It is also possible to subscribe to the INSITE quarterly magazine, which gives great value to one's money. Now, movie fans with zone-free DVD player can order the Zone 1 Collector's edition of SIT movie, which contains a lot of special features.

Back to SIT documentary, Director's commentary (Jeannot Szwarc, from Jaw 2), the SIT Fans Club, production photographs, theatrical trailer, production notes and finally cast and filmmakers’ material. And do not fear to loose the magic by either reading Matheson’s novel, or the Making Of, for they are both beautiful as well as inspired creations in their own right. In fact, inspiration is the keyword in the SIT story. Dare I say that it is the greatest merit of the filmmakers (Matheson and Szwarc for the screenplay, Stephan Deutsch for the production, Isidore Mankofsky for the photography, John Barry for the score and finally the Oscar winning costume designer, Jean-Pierre Dorleac) to have been able to preserve the beauty and uniqueness of this time travel romance? 

For those with a romantic mindset, or fascinated by time travel stories, it is impossible not to cherish Matheson's idea that love and will are good enough to travel into time, a belief that is summarized in my review title "What you believe becomes your world", (page 93 in the novel). Last but not least, a world of eternal gratefulness to John Barry who created this haunting film score. It was his gift to his good friend Jane Seymour, and was written shortly after both Barry's parents passed away. Also included in the film score, is Rachmaninoff's wonderful "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini". If indeed what you believe becomes your world, and if eternal love is part of it, then perhaps, somewhere in time you will get your chance too.

"Somewh

"Life is a Gift"

"Life and Nothing But", by Bertrand Tavernier, 1989, DVD Studio Canal 2001

Bertrand Tavernier's "Life and Nothing But" (1989) is a French movie about the absurdity and suffering of WWI. It depicts the story of Major Dellaplane (Philippe Noiret), an obsessive and deeply committed superior officer, whose task is to try to match up the 350,000 dead soldiers with the missing from families' description. His path will cross that of two very different women; the Parisian aristocrat Irène de Courtil (Sabine Azéma) and Alice (Pascale Vignal), a provincial schoolteacher. Post WWI France is a country in economical and political recession, in dire need of healing and reconciliation. Dellaplane's mission (to put names on faces) carried out with zeal and obsession, will soon conflict with the more pragmatic interests of the politicians, the industrialists and oddly enough to that of the army. Tavernier's reputation for political statements and for being l'homme en colère (the angry man), is brilliantly translated in Dellaplane's resilience against oblivion, and the way with which human life has been tragically devalued during the war. Yet, Dellaplane is not the hero of this movie, and his mission - despite his relentless commitment - only makes sense in a collective structure. 

“Life and Nothing But”, is a teamwork (Jean Cosmos co-signed the screenplay), intended to celebrate life through a thorough denunciation of the hypocrisy and profit-driven mentality of post WWI France. Tavernier's choice of using long-shots (only one close-up of Dellaplane, at the end of the movie) to induce a sense of community, is consistent with Dellaplane's quest for a collective sense of justice and decency. When Dellaplane meets with Irène, his first reaction is irritation, as she does not seem to understand the importance of his task. He told Irène that he will "devote exactly one 350,000th of his stunning incompetence" to help her locate her missing husband. Dellaplane's struggle between his enormous task and his attraction to Irène is well reflected in Tavernier's use of wide-angle lenses that create a sense of spatial relationship, over that of intimacy. Yet, there is a sense of nascent intimacy between Dellaplane and Irène, an overwhelming feeling of love and desire, to which he first did not respond very well, "J'étais en panne de tout", (I ran out of everything), he said to his commanding officer, after his first and only private encounter with Irène. 

“Life and Nothing But” won the BAFTA Film Award as well as the Cesar for Best Actor (Philippe Noiret) and best film score (Oswald d'Andrea). Overall, "Life and Nothing But" is not a grim movie, despite its subject matter. My strongest critic is that I found it rather difficult to relate to the main characters, precisely because of Tavernier's emphasis on the community rather than on the individual. On the bright side, I must say that I liked the scenario and the way Tavernier's mind works. As far as I know, he succeeded in capturing the social and cultural landscape of post WWI France. A special mention to the very last part of the movie, when Dellaplane now retired from the army, reads out loud the love letter he sent to Irène, now living in New York. It has the royauté dérisoire (the derisory grandeur) of a true gentleman. This DVD edition is in French, with English subtitles and offers an interview with Bertrand Tavernier and Jean Cosmos, scenes selection, filmographies and finally a stills section. For those who liked Philippe Noiret, this movie is a real treat. To him too, life and nothing but came first.

«Icône»

Forêt de cèdres rouges

sur manteau de neige,

épaisseur des frondes

sommeil de taïga

L'air glacé a des gestes bleus

sur le poitrail des bêtes

que laboure une nuit

plus acérée que la ronce

Immobile

un homme mange le vent des lisières

et pleure ses yeux muets 

"Under the Master's Eyes"

"Dreams", 1990, by Akira Kurosawa, Warner Home Video DVD, 2003

"Dreams", by Akira Kurosawa, is a movie about eight dreams made by Kurosawa throughout his life. It was written by the master himself, and shot entirely in Japan in Gotemba Shizuoka and in Tokyo. The movie is a slow-paced and hypnotic-like journey into Kurosawa's dreams, and deals with universal feelings, ideas or important issues, such as beauty, respect for nature, war, mental illness, death, human failures and our ability to connect with the living in a more general sense. Although the eight dreams - but are they really? - pertain to very different areas of human life, they contain some overlapping themes, which make the movie easier to watch, but to my eyes this is detrimental to its credibility. The eight dreams: Sunshine Through The Rain, The Peach Orchard, The Blizzard, The Tunnel, Crows, Mount Fuji in Red, The Weeping Demon and Village of the Watermills, are treated as parables of stunning beauty and allow the viewer to reflect on their richness, either by thinking or by own reverie. As a unifying thread, we follow a wandering ego throughout the eight dreams, whose role seem to be that of a witness to the director's astonishing cinematographic mastery. At that point, dare I say that this mastery is more likely what makes "Dreams" more an exercise in cinematographic virtuosity than the spontaneous tale of a man's dreamlike world. Let us take two examples. 

 

In "The Tunnel", Kurosawa shows us a Japanese captain who has recently being demobilized. As he approaches a dark tunnel, he suddenly finds himself face to face with a menacing anti-tank dog, strapped with explosives. Soon after, he hears the footsteps of a man approaching. The man, one of his soldiers, has been killed during a bloody battle. His soldier is lost between our world and the afterlife, not knowing what to do next, not even realising his life is over. The two men try to communicate with one another, but there is a sense of dead end in the dialogue. Next, the entire company of the captain emerges from the tunnel, faces painted in pale blue and white, they too bewildered and anxiety-laden. As the captain tries to express his sorrow to all his dead men, they look at him silently, as if his words - the absurdity of war, the inhumanity of military life, his own lack of courage during battle - were useless, unable to either alleviate their torments or make sense of their sad fate. Perhaps, it's just me, but I found this one dream terribly preachy. Was it really a dream? Or more like a charge Kurosawa made towards the army, wars fought here and there for whatever purpose or cause, always ending with the same pain and bitterness? 

There is no doubt than the eight dreams are the product of an accomplished visual artist (Kurosawa was a trained painter, storyboarding his films as full-scale paintings), but they don't really feel like they are dreams. Another example of my discomfort, in the ' Village of the Watermills', Kurosawa journeys through the almost-to-good-to-be-true natural beauty of a picturesque landscape. There, he meets an old man who is fixing a watermill wheel. The two engage in a profound reflection about the meaning of human life, the values we should embrace and the illusions we should rid ourselves from. All very interesting and all that, but somehow out of place in what is after all, supposed to be a dream. But, the scenery is astonishingly beautiful, the atmosphere charming, almost to the point of reminding me of another great visual (Hollywood) dream, that of the "Wizard of Oz". Too sacrilege? Debatable, I know. But for all my admiration for Kurosawa's work, I find myself unable to embark on this dreamlike masterpiece. Simply too sophisticated to its own good. What dreams may become, we never really know. But from where they come from, they seldom come as perfect as that. Or, do they?

«Giorgio de Chirico ou l'éternité par intermittence»

Piazza d'Italia, 1961, Giorgio de Chirico, huile sur toile 40 x 50.5 cm. Collection de Derek Power, Londres

«Qui peut nier le rapport troublant qui existe entre la perspective et la métaphysique? » se demandait de Chirico. « Piazza d'Italia », 1961. Place d'Italie, Turin? Île de Naxos, Grèce? Place du rêve, paysage métaphysique? La toile peinte en 1961, appartient à la troisième période du peintre, celle qualifiée de néo- métaphysique, de 1940 à sa mort en 1978. « Piazza d'Italia », 1961. Mais la date compte si peu, surtout s'agissant de Giorgio de Chirico, si prompt à jouer avec sa propre légende. Place d'Italie, probablement Turin, la ville fétiche de de Chirico, celle où il a reçu la révélation de son destin de créateur. Turin, la ville des rêveries Nietzschéennes, celle aussi où le philosophe allemand sombrera dans la folie, en 1888. Entre Turin et Naxos, entre l'Italie et la Grèce; à la fois émergeant de la mémoire du peintre et rêvée, un espace unique, reconstruit, tour à tour insaisissable et éternel. Un entre-deux, une déchirure dans le tissu du temps. Ariane, ma sœur*... On a beaucoup écrit sur la peinture de Giorgio de Chirico, mais finalement assez peu sur la série des Piazza d'Italia, qui représente pourtant une bonne centaine de toiles. Pourquoi cela? Est-ce par qu'elles semblent désertées par l'histoire, accessibles uniquement sous les auspices du rêve? C'est qu'à bien y regarder, « Piazza d'Italia », 1961, tient un peu du miracle. À la fois dans le réel et le réfutant, allégorie du passé glorieux de l'Italie – via son architecture – et méditation sur le mystère de notre existence. Tout tient, mais tout vacille. L'ici et l'ailleurs. Voir, voir, jusqu'à l'aveuglement. Voir? 

Et que voyons-nous, en regardant attentivement « Piazza d'Italia », 1961? D'abord, le décor. Une scène de ville presque déserte, si ce n'est pour la présence de deux hommes, à gauche du tableau. De chaque côté de la toile, un bâtiment aux arcades romaines. Le bâtiment de gauche a des fenêtres aux volets clos, comme pour indiquer qu'il est habité, tandis que celui de droite semble posé là, seulement comme contre-point plastique à celui de gauche. Zoom avant. Pas d'entrée visible dans le corps du bâtiment, des fenêtres ne donnant sur rien, et sur la droite un bloc de pierre, plus repoussoir visuel qu'élément de scénographie. Nous voilà prévenus, on n'entre pas dans le monde de de Chirico. Regarder, oui. Entrer, non. Au centre de la toile, la statue d'Ariane, dans l'éclairage cru de cette fin d'après-midi. Au fond, barrant le paysage, une tour. La tour, le môle d'Antonelli est un monument célèbre culminant à 167, 5 mètres et qui se trouve à Turin. Derrière un train à vapeur, et enfin la montagne. Revenons sur les éléments du décor. D'abord, les arcades. Pourquoi cette prédilection pour l'architecture? Pour de Chirico, l'arcade romaine traduit parfaitement son obsession du mesurable. 



Ses toiles fourmillent d'instruments de mesure: équerre, compas, règle, té, etc. C'est une référence picturale à la Renaissance, aux théoriciens et aux peintres – d'Alberti à Brunelleschi, en passant par Piero della Francesca - qui ont posé les bases du langage plastique occidental. Le môle d'Antonelli, que l'on retrouve dans nombre des Places d'Italie du peintre, est un double hommage à Turin. C'est à Turin que de Chirico va découvrir son style. C'est également la ville où le peintre prend conscience de l'influence bénéfique de l'architecture sur ses sens. Pour Giorgio de Chirico qui souffre de crises de mélancolie profonde, mais aussi de coliques violentes, Turin offre le refuge de sa géométrie parfaite et de son atmosphère radieuse. Ordre et linéarité. Et puis, il y a la lumière de la ville. Son ciel extrêmement clair, ses heures lentes qui semblent guidées par une force mystérieuse. Peut-être, la force du destin? Ariane, ma sœur, de quel amour blessée...

Voir, mais plus loin. Lorsqu'on regarde une toile de de Chirico, ce qui frappe avant tout c'est l'aspect théâtral. Il y a un élément de fixité plastique évident. La forme est une traduction de l'obsession du géomètre, tandis que la lumière est une cristallisation, le réceptacle visuel de la stimmung* moderne. Toutes les Places d'Italie reposent sur un même principe de tension visuelle et plastique. Les couleurs sont stridentes, l'image statique, tandis que l'architecture devient sous le pinceau de de Chirico, une cristallisation mathématique du visible. Dans « Piazza d'Italia », le visible pourtant, n'obéit pas à la logique. La fumée s'échappant de la locomotive ne correspond pas au sens du vent, indiqué par les fanions flottant au sommet du môle d'Antonelli. L'échelle n'est pas respectée entre le môle et les bâtiments. Alors, où chercher la logique? Que représentent ces cités désertées? « Il ne faut jamais oublier qu'un tableau doit toujours être le reflet d'une sensation profonde et que profond veut dire étrange et qu'étrange veut dire peu commun ou tout à fait inconnu », déclara un jour de Chirico. Et Ariane, quel rôle joue t-elle dans l'univers chiriquien? Pour le peintre, natif de Grèce et grand amateur de Nietzsche, la figure d'Ariane incarne le principe féminin de l'art. Dans « Piazza d'Italia », la statue d'Ariane, placée au centre de la composition remplace la figure vue de dos des peintres romantiques. Ariane ne fuit pas son destin, elle y consent. Comment? À mi-chemin entre l'ombre et la lumière, entre le connu et l'inconnu, le savoir et le pressentir, le chaos et l'éternité, il y a la figure mélancolique et pensive d'Ariane. C'est elle qui articule la toile, c'est autour de sa statue que sont distribués les éléments de la composition. Dans l'univers chiriquien, comme dans celui de Nietzsche, Ariane est la force du destin qui s'accomplit, avec tout son poids d'ombre et d'égarements. 

Je suis ton labyrinthe, nous dit Ariane. Dans « Piazza d'Italia », la ville devient un espace médiumnique, où le silence se fait oppressant, comme pour mieux annoncer l'orage inévitable. Les arcades romaines ne conduisent plus l'oeil vers l'infini, un au-delà du monde. L'omniprésence de l'architecture démultipliée par le découpage des ombres, accentue l'effet de révélation imminente. Sur la « Piazza d'Italia », le temps s'est arrêté, suspendu au-dessus de l'abîme du regard. C'est l'instant de l'éternel retour, de la perception extrême de notre présence au monde. Une présence si intense, un mystère si entier. L'architecture y découpe l'éternité en instants isolés. L'éternité par intermittence. Le monde, sous le pinceau de de Chirico, se fait présage. Tout est signe. Place d'Italie, cinq heures du soir. Quelque chose a eu lieu. Ariane, ma sœur, de quel amour blessée, vous mourûtes  un jour aux bords où vous fûtes laissée...

*Phèdre, Jean Racine, Acte I, scène 3 (1er paragraphe)

* Consonance spirituelle, concept allemand élaboré au 18ème siècle (3ème paragraphe)