Synopsis
Louis visits his parents for a week, and wishes to find a way to break the news. His parents are intrigued to see their son making such an effort running around with a camera. So they approach and make efforts themselves to understand what he is doing. They are surprised by how much attention a camera can give to its subject. But what has Louis, Antoine, and Thérèse moving so willfully toward the unknown? They embark together on what becomes a common project; they feel that what is to come must override their fears. The video begins after eight hours of live camera. The author states “Why should I tell you, you will ask me? Very simply because, or else, I wouldn’t have anything to say.”
A word from Tënk
Presented at the outset as a simple exercise in reconnecting with one's parents in preparation for an important announcement, Louis Dionne's Comment vs dirais-je? turns out to be much more than that. This film-that-is-supposedly-not-a-film is a punch to the gut. I can't help but repeat the words I wrote in 2007 for the Vithèque platform: "The completely stripped-down approach […] leaves no possible escape from the shock of the revelations captured by the camera. The fragile intimacy barely established between a son and his parents is shattered by a brutal phone call and an impromptu visit that together create a rift, a disturbance within their pain and malaise. In this cinema of the immediate moment, all is stripped bare and we are persistently haunted by both the silences and by the awkward but very true conversations.'' The extreme deliberate simplicity of this approach - a single fixed frontal long take of the director's parents - forces discomfort and emotion to settle in, then unfold over time, with all the disturbing implications for the viewer. The turmoil is vivid but contained, tangible but restrained. The differences of religious and spiritual opinions find unsuspected common grounds of reconciliation and harmony. Thirty-three minutes of face-to-face interaction during which the viewer witnesses the tender and ordinary triumph of life over the looming ghost of inevitable death.
Claire Valade
Critic and programmer
