MARCHE DES PRIMATES ET STATIONS DEBOUT

This opus could be interpreted as a long and elegiac version of the Danse of the Primates at the Museum of Natural History. While the previous film pulsates like the work of Paul SHARITS, this film adopts an elegiac and meditative approach close to that of Jonas MEKAS. This artistic filiation is, of course, more coincidental than deliberate. The principal subject matter - the heart and Greek chorus of the film - is revealed to us only at the end of two long minutes, shot in alternating black-and-white and colour. We see people on roller-skates moving along a path, then a series of pedestrians strolling beside a lake. It's obviously a day-off for the humans. The film-maker then directs our attention to a abstract and poorly-defined black surface. A lascivious series of black-and-white double-exposure reveals a cluster of hands and faces from which, like an incongruous chrysalis, the figure of a large monkey gradually emerges. At this point the film accelerates to cruise control: sequences of sporting activities (racing, judo or karate) alternate with shots of humans (especially children) watching animals, with our domestic King Kong occasionally detaching himself from the morass. The film captures our human potential, when on holidays and at ease, to temporarily escape our rigid social corset.

Raphaël Bassan