Benoît Labourdette’s cinema was discovered in January 2011. It was part of a series of screenings at Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers. That evening was shown Fatigue, a film about exhaustion linked to the modern way of life. One keeps a foggy memory: the image of an escalator in a metro station, accompanied by an almost philosophical voice-over. This docufiction straight out of the Consumer Society of Baudrillard had intrigued us.
Jesus and Brahim’s backpack have just been uploaded to the director’s website. In Jesus, the camera films the sacred writings engraved on the walls of the Sagrada Familia, while a feminine voice scans them: film on writing, on the original trace of writing. In Brahim’s Backpack, Labourdette films and loops, according to a form of sampling of the image, a race between young people, in a place that resembles an old parking lot. The voice-over tells the story of Brahim who participates in the race, with his backpack loaded with memories. The character runs as fast as possible towards the finish line as if the moment of the race was the only possible moment of forgetting of the other. Either a form of experimental cinema that is interested in the subjective experience of time and the pain (of the worker, the Christ, the lover) inherent in the human condition.
The race starts on the site of Benoît Labourdette, by clicking on the image below.
