Some passages from Irene Claremont de Castillejo's 'Knowing Woman: A Feminine Psychology', some images from Philippe Garrel's 'The Phantom Heart', and a few memories of myself at eighteen. A collage on the themes of love, hate, and indifference—and the blossoming of unique relationships.
Tag: Philippe Garrel
Prefiguration and Apparition: ‘A Burning Hot Summer’ (Philippe Garrel, 2011)
The most haunting image of 'A Burning Hot Summer': Angèle naked, on her back, lying over the blue linen of the marital bed. She turns her face toward the camera, extends her right arm, and mutters a word that we can't hear because the sound of this fragment has been suppressed. Where does this image come from? Is it a memory, a vision, an hallucination? The stillness is only broken by Angèle's rhythmic breathing, by the movement of her head and lips, and by a gesture (her arm extended forward, in a pleading attitude) enacted, almost exactly, twice in a row.
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”...
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...
Laugh Motel 