Making a grave

These candles burned out one after the other, and then all remained, unorganized, here and there in the space. At one point, a lot of activity meant that the workroom became cluttered. One day the candles, which had been on the same shelf for months, had to make way for new musical speakers. Then they were in motion again, their moment would come, I could feel it, but I didn’t know how. And one morning, amidst the piles of books, audiovisual equipment and departing suitcases, they finally made their way into their own memory, and I was asked to film them. Then I spoke. Everything organized itself. Everything placed itself.

Thoughts

When there’s no sound in a film, the viewer is left with a feeling of emptiness that can be almost unbearable. Is there a technical problem? It’s something abnormal that absolutely has to be filled. It puts us in touch with the ultimate void. It’s like holding one’s breath, which brings us face to face with the absoluteness of death. The film is built around unbearable silence. The voice is solitary, in the cold of silence. And in fact... we need this silence to be reborn, to reinvent ourselves after the ultimate trauma.