What is the film about?

Two characters meet and confront each other in a merciless battle. The story is revealed through a profusion of black and white drawings, evoking an etching in perpetual movement. Brief gestures are repeated in loops, to the point of exhaustion. Obsessive and hypnotic.

What influenced it?

Goya’s series of etchings “Disasters of War” (1810-1815)
Drawn lines in animation : “Free Radicals” (1958), by Len Lye
Use of loops in animation : “Tango” (1981), by Zbigniew Rybczyński

A little background information...

In 2011, I received an invitation to participate in a theatrical project in Montreal (Canada) : Nathalie Sarraute’s Pour un oui ou pour un non. I filmed the two main actors performing a series of gestures borrowed from the play or from Goya’s etchings. They were drawn in animation and transformed into loops that we used as backgrounds for the play. When the show was over, I recycled the loops and added new ones, integrating them in a completely transformed scenario, conceived as a more open and abstract continuum.

How was the film made?

I rotoscoped the gestures of the two main characters on a digital tablet, being careful not to let the rotoscoping dictate the quality of drawing and focusing on an energy similar to life-drawing. They were reduced to loops and I began to experiment through the editing. I build up the backgrounds by accumulating innumerable layers form all the loops so that they would be present at all moments of the film, with an abundance of lines that would refer to what can be attained in etchings. I structured the film to bring it to a certain climax but I also dissolved the contrasts to explore a certain sense of angst through an obsessively repetitive pattern.
(note: my new film “They Dance With Their Heads” is selected for the competition at Annecy 2021)