Pierre Creton has always been very meticulous. His previous or simultaneous activity
as a beekeeper or a milk controller probably made him grow that way. This time,
the director presents us with a compilation of four films. Or another one film
designed as a compilation. Because even if each part exists by itself (some were
even commissioned), they are brought together like a carefully arranged bunch of
flowers. With what thread, then? A vegetal one, actually. Before further elaboration,
it is worth saying that the film deals with portraits. In order of appearance: Georges-
Arthur Goldschmidt, tremendous translator from German into French and author
himself; architect and town planner Auguste Perret, famous for the rebuilding of Le
Havre; Aline Cézanne, Paul’s grand-daughter, whose parents were friends with Jean
Renoir, and who tells us about the spring of her life; and finally Deng Guo Yuan, a
Chinese painter and friend of the director’s, who lets leaves and branches grow out
of his paintbrush. The raw material for these encounters – except for the last one,
whose protagonist may hide it by keeping silent – is History, the meticulous or
spontaneous, epic or jubilant telling of a past not yet over and done with.
But even though dramatic or joyful, such a focus on life accounts is not enough:
there has to be another thread. It happens to be the landscape, or more modestly
speaking the grass and a few plants, which subtly suggest that something keeps
growing no matter what: memory. (JPR)