The setting: a mental hospital in Evreux on the eve of its demolition. By
way of introduction, a quick and sharp track-out through a window, as a
foretaste of what is coming: a journey from outside to inside, carried along
by the wind.
Reshuffling the cards by disconnecting pictures from sound, edited with
partial synchronisation, Quentin Brière Bordier focuses on the sounds of
material life. The snapping of the barber’s scissors, the purring of an electric
shaver, the clinking of cutlery, as so many sound presences magnified by
gorgeous black and white. Devoid of words, the film departs from testimonies
and rather pays close attention to faces and the ritualized gestures
of daily life. Such scrutiny is absolutely devoid of nostalgia for the dilapidated
walls of these outdated rooms, whose prison-like nature is expressed
through a series of violent, jerky shots. And while inside, the facility is slowly
getting empty, condemning the last remains of past lives to vanish, and
outside destruction is raging – wrecked walls, trees rooted out to the sound
of thunderous chainsaws – we catch a glimpse of prostrate, stubbornly silent
bodies. Obviously, from fallen trees to these last men, Quentin Brière Bordier
invites us to shift our gazes beyond compassion in order to – as the title
inspired by Murnau suggests – remember a humanity which is also ours. (NF)