Successive Slidings of Pleasure: ‘L’Après-midi d’un jeunne homme qui s’ennuie’ (Jean-Claude Brisseau, 1968)

There's a draft of a story in 'L'Après-midi d'un jeune homme qui s'ennuie'. The filmmaker plays a filmmaker hanging out in a room, poised – as it were – between the May 68 revolts (taking place in the streets) and his erotic reveries (just … taking place, I guess). The first section of the film builds on this pun: a back and forth, between the protests and the fantasies, with an increasingly (and hilariously) anguished Brisseau in the middle...

Into The Dark: ‘Sombre’ (Philippe Grandrieux, 1998)

A car is driving along a mountain's curvy road. The camera intermittently approaches and detaches itself from the vehicle. We are carried away in this hypnotic movement, this rubber-band movement of the camera, this snaking movement of the ride – landscape and light changing at each turn. With each new shot, the sun’s setting is closer, and the contrast between earth and sky is sharper. We sink under the pitch-black silhouette of edgy trees cropped against the blue sky. We descend into total darkness. And from this darkness, terrible screams emerge...

Defiled Garden: ‘The Invention of Morel’ (Adolfo Bioy Casares, 1940)

There's a passage of the novel I’ve always liked. Amongst the group of tourists, there's a woman – Faustine – who every evening contemplates the setting sun. The hero, who has fallen for this woman just by looking at her from the distance, decides to give her something. First he tries – I've tried it, too – the good old, conventional approach: conversation. But he's not seen, he's not heard. And, so, he makes an offering to her: a garden of flowers – which he refers to as his "last poetic recourse". Well, writing is this garden of flowers...

Sea Passage: ‘Nostos: il Ritorno’ (Franco Piavoli, 1989)

Franco Piavoli's 'Nostos: Il Ritorno' dares a free adaptation of Homer's 'The Odyssey' that stresses the poetic qualities of a work more known (at least in the popular imagination) for its epic values. There are still, in this film, traces of the physical adventure, passages that involve what is often referred to as action (although the more action-driven a scene, the more it is subjected to a minimalistic, quasi-Bressonian approach). It turns out that, for Piavoli, the adventure is, above all, sensorial and psychic...

Running with Keith Jarrett

It's winter, 2014. I have resolved to start running. There's a very green park, next to where we live in Frankfurt. I observe a Japanese woman training. It occurs to me, now, that she could have been a world champion of some sort of running-related sport. But, that day of 2014, for some reason, I decide to take her as the average person on whom I will model my running. She runs so fast, so vigorously, that it's almost obscene. I do not know how to run, so I copy her. That is a manner of speaking – for, after a few minutes, I feel like I'm going to die. I'm exhausted, I can't breathe, my chest is burning. I cry...

An Experiment in Non-Smoking (IV): July’s Drawings

These drawings don't strive for perfection, they just push to be completed — and, perhaps, this is why it feels so good doing them. I understand that it may be only to me that they are so incredibly fascinating. But isn't that always the risk (and most of the times even the case), after all? It is as if I trusted that, no matter what I do, the drawing will show something to me. I know how awfully esoteric this sounds, but …

An Experiment in Non-Smoking (II): Six Stabbings

Not conventional drawings (I also do those), but compulsive carving and scratching. I've started calling them 'stabbings' since the gestures performed when I make them resemble, I think, the act of stabbing someone (perhaps oneself). This series of six stabbings, made in one of those tiny notepads found in hotel rooms, were executed successively during a particularly difficult evening of the last week in Antwerp...

An Experiment in Non-Smoking (I)

Smoking doesn't make stress and anxiety go away, but it masks them. Entangled in the smoke of a cigarette I can stand unpleasant situations and unwanted meetings. To inhale and exhale smoke is to cope with a world whose air you cannot breathe. Smoke makes some images go dim, it loosens up links, it makes life liveable by turning it into ash...

The Answer Is Blowing in the Wind: ‘The Turin Horse’ (Béla Tarr & Ágnes Hranitzky, 2011)

Brian De Palma explained once in a press conference how, during the mixing of 'Dressed to Kill', he rebuked his sound engineer: “That wind, I hear that wind over and over, you’ve used it for four films. Get me some new wind!” This anecdote made me remember vividly my first experience watching (and listening to) 'The Turin Horse'. At first, I couldn’t exactly tell what was bothering me. But, halfway through, I realised: the answer was blowing in the wind...

Four for the Road: ‘De jueves a domingo’ (Dominga Sotomayor, 2012)

Sotomayor operates by defining a foreground (usually occupied by the kids) and a background (often filled by the parents). Each zone has its own, internal activity. The kids’ zone is mainly conjugated in the present tense: they play, enjoy, interact, dream. The parents’ zone is more convoluted: the present moment of the trip is always intermingled with the shadows of a shared past and an uncertain future...

White of the Origins: ‘Liberté, la nuit’ (Philippe Garrel, 1984)

Blown by the wind, a white sheet enters the frame, like a candle swelling and shrinking. Its hypnotic and unpredictable movements obliterate (sometimes partially, other times entirely) the action in the background. It is a spectacle of heightened, Epsteinian poetry that demands to be read under the lens of Jacques Rancière's “thwarted fable”...

Cinema Invents Smoking: ‘Barrier’ (Jerzy Skolimowski, 1966)

In detonations and flashes of light, a brazier – or better still, its shadow – discharges an explosive poetry. The off-screen fire, burning in the midst of a deserted landscape, is projected onto and fuelled by the hero. In his face, we can guess tales: of the orphaned rascal, of the tired voyager, of wars and bombs. His bowed head and her pair of white boots stumble upon each other. A dog – sniffing the ground, shaking the water off his hair – meets the stranger who will, perhaps, feed him: love at first sight...

Motion, Propagation, Transmission: ‘Devil in the Flesh’ (Marco Bellocchio, 1986)

Marco Bellocchio’s 'Devil in the Flesh' starts with a shot of several, interconnected buildings: a high-angle view encompassing the three areas where the action of the eight-minute opening sequence will take place. He draws a precise diagram of the struggle at the centre of the film: madness, besieged on all sides by two institutions – church and school (a third, psychiatry, will make an appearance later) – that are both seduced and horrified by its manifestation...

Isak’s Tale: ‘Fanny and Alexander’ (Ingmar Bergman, 1982)

The sequence is part of the fifth chapter – titled “Demons” – of the TV version of 'Fanny and Alexander'. When it takes place, we have already been immersed in the misfortunes of the Ekdahl family for more than four hours. Isak Jakobi has managed to rescue Fanny and Alexander from their wicked stepfather, Vergérus, whose abuses have become intolerable. Isak shelters the siblings at his labyrinthine residence, shows them the room where they will sleep and proceeds to read them a story...

Back with a Vengeance?: ‘Phoenix’ (Christian Petzold, 2014)

Petzold has a special knack for punchy, surprising endings. The final minutes of 'Phoenix' are a great proof of this. However, when I saw the film for the first time, its ending left me with a strange feeling. In a way, it provided a perfectly coherent closure. But, paradoxically, as the protagonist morphed into a blur and exited the frame, I also felt as if the movie had yet to begin. I want to stay with this first impression for a moment – because I think it says a lot about how our expectations can condition what we see and hear on screen...

Missing, Misunderstanding, Noticing: ‘Le Cercle rouge’ (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1970)

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about one shot from Jean-Pierre Melville's 'Le cercle rouge'. The first thing I must confess about this shot is that I had never really seen it before – at least, not properly. It belongs to this scene happening 35 minutes into the film. The scene is the culmination of a particular idea: using intercutting to bridge the gap between Corey and Vogel – two characters that have never met, but whose destinies are, thanks to a magnetic parallel montage, intertwined from the very beginning...

Teenage Daydream: ‘Les Enfants terribles’ (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1950)

History tells us that the collaboration between Jean-Pierre Melville and Jean Cocteau was neither easy nor sweet. “Before, we were brothers; during the shooting, we couldn’t stand each other”, said the director. Unlike in his debut feature 'Le Silence de la mer', where he adapted Vercors’ novel with great fidelity but also in total independence and freedom, the more collaborative nature of this project prompted many discussions. However, if 'Les Enfants terribles' is today such a fascinating film is also thanks to these artistic disagreements...

Five Poems in Search of an Author: ‘The Kindergarten Teacher’ (Nadav Lapid, 2014)

When I was ten, I was obliged to write a poem for a class exercise. Inspired by some tragic news I read in the newspaper, I composed a very tortuous, extremely affected sonnet in perfect hendecasyllabic verses. My teacher, who was greatly impressed, suggested only a small change in order to reinforce even further (as if it were necessary!) the already annoying, monotonous, consonant rhyme. Three years later, my younger brother did the same exercise. This is what he wrote ...

If versus Despite: ‘Sweet Dreams’ (Marco Bellocchio, 2016)

In Marco Bellocchio's 'Sweet Dreams', there's a scene in which the teenage hero, Massimo, is questioned by his teacher, Father Ettore, about why he keeps telling his friends that his mother is alive when, in reality, she's been dead for several years. "If she were still here … ", says the kid. "If, if … 'If' is the mark of failure. In this life, it’s 'despite' that makes you succeed", responds the Father...

Let the Right One In: ‘Mikey and Nicky’ (Elaine May, 1976)

Watching 'Mikey and Nicky' for the first time is like driving at night through an unfamiliar route full of curves and cliffs. You need to be vigilant, attentive, constantly readjusting your vision and hearing. You have to carefully read the signs and, at the same time, be ready for some sudden surprises. You can’t relax; your must tune your reflexes...

Getting Ahead of Myself

Writing on, with, around film is something I’ve been doing quite regularly for ten years now. On, with, around: for me, those are not pure or exclusive categories. They often overlap and intertwine in ways that are quite mysterious and unpredictable. This is something I value highly and, therefore, I want to keep doing it. But I’d also like to do something different...