Empathy

Dawn vibrates in New York as it extends on a body waking up. Half-covered by sheets, it’s a body which will never disclose itself entirely, even when caught in the midst of the sexual act: Em is an escort girl and, what’s more, a heroine addict: just the right elements which Jeffrey Dunn Rovinelli’s first film presents so as to get rid of them as fast as possible. From New York to Los Angeles via Pittsburgh, Em’s daily life is revealed, at first, as an antithesis of pre-conceived ideas about her, questioning the spectator’s desire in relation to documentary film. Do we have to look at Em the way she looks at the people passing by down the street, through her hotel window? Drugs are invisible, at least in words, and sex is no more than a Pop-Shakespearian performance filmed in HD. Around work, steps to go in and get out of it: shifts, makeup, waiting… Em’s true life and a certain portrait of the United States rise out of this daily routine seemingly punctuated by slow times. Her confessions reveal dreams of independence and the presence of what is far away, of attraction and disgust towards others. If, in the end, this 16mm picture seems to welcome the character’s secret liberation, the spectator will surmise that it is Em who has seized the film: from now on, it is she who will be re-modeling it.(V.P.)