We remember with Maniquerville (in the 2009 FID competition) Pierre Creton
introduced us to a center of gerontology that was enjoying its last moments before
being destroyed and transferred to Fécamp on a site of a less hospitable nature.
Le Grand Cortège is the sequel and conclusion to this film, since here we are
present at the transfer of the residents from one place to another. But these few
solitary journeys that the camera accompanies in the ambulance reverberate more
solemnly because it is without a doubt death that is at the end of the road, as the
discreet images of the funeral evoke, captured by the camera lens from afar.
A meditation not very unusual with Creton as that on disappearance, but here it
takes on an aspect of a particular frontality, and the passage of time finds itself coldly
represented by the car, an adaptation brought up to date by the Grim Reaper’s
notorious conscientiousness. From the ambulance of the introduction, filmed at the
hour when the day begins, to the collector’s car that is lovingly restored at the end,
to music, giving it the semblance of a modern sarcophagus, it is the mechanism
that is given rivaling life and finally ends up prevailing. (JPR)