Funérailles (de l’art de mourir)

It is well-nigh impossible to talk about Boris Lehman. Why? Because in the recent history of European cinema he has already become a legend. But above all because he’s already carried out the business of talking about himself: indeed his work is by nature autobiographical or, to repeat his own words: “auto-cine-bio- graphical”. To interweave his life and the recording of it, to choose to make his life a work of art, but without giving it monumental shape, on the contrary, to weave it amply, systematically, reel after reel (let’s remember, among so many titles, the History of My Life as Told by my Photographies at FID 2013): such is the “Babel” project, thus entitled par Lehman. To be sure, what was missing was a last full stop. But even this, then, in the form of suspension points, in order to remain faithful to his way of doing things. For it is this suspending and ultimate punctuation mark which his last opus suggests, and which is actually presented as conclusive. We attend various farewell rituals: the choice of coffins, a burial, a funeral procession, a funeral oration, a testament speech, etc. As is his wont, there is a blend here of the mischievous and the moving, the burlesque and the confession. In “The Art of Dying”, the subtitle which seemingly borrows from ancient wisdom, it is above all art which makes itself heard here, art that’s very much alive and kicking: posthumous for a laugh, pre-posthumous maybe, but undoubtedly very lively. (JPR)