SCFZ

Displacement
Distances
Drifting

Film #1.

Earth Light/Le Clair de terre (Guy Gilles, 1970)

The Tunisian born hero of the film decides to break with his disorganized yet habit-ridden life in Paris, and sets off to discover his homeland, which he left at 6 years old, and to rekindle the memory of his mother, who died when he was a child.

Guy Gilles (25 August 1938, French Algeria - 3 February 1996, Paris)

Just like the main character of Earth Light, Gilles was a Pied Noir, born in French Algeria to French parents. He wanted the film to be set in Algeria but couldn't due to the political climate at the time so he had to settle for Tunisia. The precocious, sadboi Gilles never really managed to find an audience with his personal, wistful films. The increasing diffulties to secure funding and his unwillingness to compromise his vision ultimately led to him mostly working in televison before dying of AIDS in 1996.



Here he is at the premiere of the film (?) with his romantic partner at the time, Jeanne Moreau and frequent star Patrick Jouane ("his Jean Marais"). The breakdown of his relationship with Moreau would see him plunge into depression and an attempted suicide. It would later come to inspire his following film, Absences répétées.

Now, Earth Light...I guess I like it cuz it feels as light and tangible as a Mediterranean breeze. I can def see how the precocious sadboiness of it all might not be to some people's liking but hey, stay for the craftmanship, when the editing hits all the right notes it truly slaps. Oh and yeah, the bisexual energy! Gilles' films are briming with it without ever really being explicit about it.

Film #2.

Drift (Helena Wittman, 2017)

This film put me to sleep...or rather lulled me to sleep, in a good way, was a splendid nap. Angela Schanelec by way of Michael Snow or something like that.



One 4 my fellow seappreciators

Film #3.

Model Shop (Jacques Demy, 1969)

Demy's only American effort. The anti Zabriskie point in a way, a melancholy day in a life of a guy who's drifting through LA in a car whilst his life comes crumbling down slowly around him.

I came here for a vacation, not to make a movie. But I fell in love with LA. I just had to make a film. It's so marvellous. When I left Paris it was dead. Now I've missed the revolution and everything. But I had been so depressed, so discouraged. I said I must go someplace where something's happening. I don't want to be pretentious but I want The Model Shop to be Los Angeles, 1968 – like Rossellini's Europa '51. Lola is a very small part. She ties the story together. Everything is like a puzzle: it fits together. I want to forget Cherbourg, Rochefort. I've gone as far as I can with that. I needed another language, new problems. This won't be a Hollywood movie. I told them I like to shoot on location, use real people whenever possible. The sound stage, big stars, big budget – I wouldn't enjoy that. I learned the city by driving – from one end of Sunset to the other, down Western all the way to Long Beach. LA has the perfect proportions for film. It fits the frame perfectly.

Film #3.

Inferno (Stanislav Barabas, 1973)

August Strindberg going kaka cuckoo whilst drifting from Paris to Sweden.



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