Pepe and the finely dressed felines of Paris.

{...taking us to 27 films thus far.}

Le Joli Mai (Director: Chris Marker)
Wadja (Director: Haifaa Al-Mansour)
Tower (Director: Kazik Radwanski)
Coming Forth by Day (Director: Hala Lotfy)
Blancanieves (Director: Pablo Berger)
Viola (Director: Matías Piñeiro)
The Best Offer (Director: Giuseppe Tornatore), with Q&A wth Giuseppe Tornatore and Geoffrey Rush

A young door-to-door salesmen offering green energy products for the home recalls Günther Anders’s novel The Molussian Catacomb (1932 – 1936) which features in beautiful fragmented parts in Nicolas Rey’s third feature film differently, Molussia (2012). ‘And’ really is the strongest word. You can join it to your own point neatly. ‘Use this AND save the planet. Use this AND save money. Use this AND you’ll be doing good. You do agree with all of those things, don’t you?' No is the only answer if you want them to leave. No, I don’t want to save the planet. No, I don’t want to save money either, and I don’t want to do good. (I do, of course, but what else could I do? I want to get inside to my soup on the stove that is waiting for me.)
 
Things are getting blurry as we near the halfway point of our journey. The line between film and own reality grows ever hazy. My thoughts remain in film, leaving little room for my own day-to-day musings and I say, obscure me further with your fog. The full emersion, I’ll happily, greedily wear as cloak. At festival’s end, we head to Geelong Gallery to install our work. The work is completed and currently being stored under weights to keep it flat. It sits ready and waiting, my postcard collages and Louise’s birds, and I realise that (as all the work for show we have already done in advance to MIFF) the best place to leave your doubts and jitters is the cinema. Really, things couldn’t be better timed. The full barrage!
 
Since last we spoke, some fantastical films have I seen. Le Joli Mai and Blancanieves stand out in particular. Both in beautiful black and white, one, Chris Marker’s work takes us to the streets of Paris in 1962 and, on the heels of the Algerian war, asks: what do you recall about the month of May? The second, Pablo Berger’s Blancanieves. A fairytale is retold and a glorious love missive to silent film unfolds. Such beauty! However, right now, what I recall is the animals in both. From the spider that as if on cue runs across the shoulders of the inventor as he talks about process and agrees that it is much like a spider weaving it’s web to those magnificent Parisian show-stealing felines dressed in their finery or shown hissing in conversational reply in Le Joli Mai. Of Pepe the rooster, and Lucifer and Satan the bulls in Blancanvieves. And of the trapped raccoon in Kazik Radwanski's Tower that led handfuls of people in solidarity with the raccoon's plight to leave the session. As I put the key in the front door, three little heads emerge from the dark hall. There is Percy, and Omar, and behind them, Olive. A greeting party of pets. Of film festival casualties! Where have you been? We miss you. Feed us. Warm us. Nuzzle us. Doze with us, post soup and toast.


{Blancanieves}


{Le Joli Mai}

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