Format VOD
Original format16mm
Year1978-1984
Language(s)French
Artist(s) Alain Mazars
Subtitles English
Running time 120 min
Films
ROUGES SILENCES (1978) 53'
LE JARDIN DES AGES (1982) 31'
VISAGES PERDUS (1983) 13'
ACTUS (1984) 23'
Description
"Here is a stunning film. First by the rhythm of the images, visual scansions, extremely rigorous framing, lighting, direction of actors—in short, a concentration of cinematographic elements that exists above all for effectiveness. But not the narrative effectiveness with which American cinema inundates us, but truly a professional effectiveness that gives each shot a dynamic, a force, a fulfilled intention. Here, the codes of the fantastic are both amplified and distanced by an expressionist aesthetic that perhaps for the first time in expressionism takes humor into account. Certain extreme close-ups of flowers, of insects, bring to mind the prose of a Caillois for which I knew of no equivalent in cinema until now. There exists in this film a double movement. At the same time, a kind of restraint in the shots and a bulimia, a frenzy to film—perhaps it is this primarily that troubles us and carries us away into a way of seeing that was unknown to us. Here is a film that takes into account an entire visual and narrative heritage and runs it through the grinder of a terribly personal style."
— Jean-Jacques Bernard on Rouges Silences