La limace et l’escargot

CountryFrance Year2024 Duration57 min. Projection formatDCP LanguageFrench DirectionAnne Benhaïem FestivalsCôté Court Pantin Francia

International première
 

 

Crushing encounter between two limping sexagenerians

“Do you want me to give you a spoiler?”

On a café terrace, a woman is explaining the first scene of a film to two friends. The friends are Pascale Bodet and Bojena Horackova, both filmmakers and both actresses. The woman telling the story is Anne Benhaïem: the filmmaker herself. [g1] Also an actress. The film is hers. The main character is her. She plays herself: a woman living in Paris who has suffered a stroke and limps. She therefore gets around more slowly than others. Like the titular slug. In a few seconds, she will bump into a snail: Serge Blazevic, a man who paints, who also plays himself. A chance encounter that will give way to a modern tale, singing the praise of slowness. A passing waiter will lift them off the ground. But they won’t go far. They say there is a café every three metres in Paris: more than a third of the film will take place on a café terrace. The meetings with the filmmaker friends, which frame the film, and the two main characters having drinks. Their chance —intentional— meeting is the fictional pretext for the film. A minimalist fiction plot that enables limited bodies and discussions about inherent problems to be shown, in everyday situations. In an uncommon register: that of a love story between sexagenarians who face life with a sense of humour. A deep, sweet, precise sense of humour. One that does not evade difficulties, bifurcation, drama. But without being dramatic. With finesse. A finesse that also characterises the montage —in its simplicity, its ellipses—. One that constructs a charming intimacy: that of a pyjama for two. One that forms a fragile bubble around the two main characters, whether on the street, in a park with birds or in their respective apartments, into which they invite one another, into which they invite us. The conversations between the slug and the snail exude a genuine complicity, a pleasure to play. In fact, the majority of those dialogues are improvised. That improvisation, which pervades the film, contributes to its peculiar beauty and creates a kind of delicious freedom. It is based on a tender attention to that which is encountered, to the human relationship, to the details that give poetry to the banal —whether that be naked feet or feet with shoes on, pieces of sticky tape on the trunk of a tree, the heart of a fruit...—. To the details that allow stories to be shared. At the end, the filmmaker will pass the baton to her friends: the most important thing is to keep telling stories and to take interest in them.

Frédérique Monblanc

In the same program

Promoted by
Gobierno de Navarra
Organized by
NICDO
With the aid of
Con la financiación del Gobierno de España. Instituto de la Cinematografía y las Artes Audiovisuales Acción Cultural Española Plan de Recuperación, Transformación y Resiliencia Financiado por la Unión Europea. NexGenerationEU
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