Journal de septembre (2019) - full transcript
September Diary
September 1st
feeding the carp
diary,
chronology of the passing days
you too, have known this,
happy days, followed by days of doubt
I show you all these moments
take good care of them
there is cause,
or of the little space left for chance
Shall I play?
portrait of Anahit
going through
30 years of correspondence
I come across the self-portraits
Walter sent over the years
I take the train
to meet with him after all this time,
and do his portrait
found the egg of a Cyclops
I remember
I have always loved,
more than anything,
the sound of bagpipes.
In a previous life, not long ago,
I remember it well,
I was in Her Majesty's
Royal Scots Guards regiment
and we experienced
the shortest battle of all time.
It was in South Africa.
We were going to fight Zulus,
thousands of Zulus.
With our bagpipes
and our uniforms,
ahead of the other regiments,
we were first to arrive
at the top of the hill.
When the Zulu tribesmen saw us,
they thought women in skirts
playing music,
had been sent to fight them.
In disgust,
they threw their spears
and shields to the ground
and left.
portrait of Gilles
What is this foreign land
that lies between two nights?
It is the day.
meeting with Eugénie,
now a vocalist
this morning, at my door
as I was filming, the barrel organ player
passed behind me
it was the last time I saw him
ah, little spiders
in your nursery,
you too feel
how exciting life is
I've something better
to play for you.
Olivier and his favorite music
from the Solomon Islands
We always come back to this.
They're so beautiful!
antarctic poetry
(in memory of Stany)
when the fog would lift
on the pack ice,
we would sometimes see
a man in the distance,
made tiny by the horizon
yet all the men in the crew,
all of them,
were sure they
could see him cry
back on land,
some of them said
that the sunbeams
were reflected in his tears
night of September 12th to 13th
things brought back from the night
It's a waiting room,
early in the morning,
where haggard people,
suitcases at their feet,
await the bus
to another country.
It's an ocean liner
that unendingly leaves the port,
prolonging the suffering
of a farewell.
It's a heavy truck
without a driver
on a highway parking lot.
It's a hotel room
where he sheds tears of joy.
It's the shadow of his hand
on the words he writes
when he writes at night.
It's the first morning bus
to cross the intersection.
It's the image of a tower
from the top of which
it would be easy to throw oneself.
It's the photo of an animal
who stops to pose
in front of the slaughterhouse.
It's a man
ashamed of cheating
who cheats anyway.
twenty years later, I make
another portrait of Mohamed,
at the pool
where he works
When you meet
with Mohamed's smile,
your day is not wasted
for a long time now,
every time I visit Jacqueline,
I give her a tiny object
I come across them again,
all kept together
"We all wake up in the same place
of the dream.
Everything begins in this world
and finishes elsewhere." Victor Hugo.
There should be a place
where one could get relief from death.
"Choosing a quote
is like auditioning an actor."
M.A. Ouaknin
Is everybody ready?
Let's do it.
"There is no other remedy
for life and death
than to enjoy
that which separates them."
Good, thank you.
Next!
"To live without love
is to die every day."
Lovely. Who said that?
- Mrs du Deffand.
"Maria had a child,
a baby daughter.
People found her adorable,
they wearied her with kisses..."
No, no, no...
- But it's Flaubert!
Yeah, OK, but...
We'll see later.
"Sound films invented silence."
Thank you.
"The best things in museums,
are the windows."
Very good. Who said that?
- Pierre Bonnard, the painter.
"One must learn to doubt
before one learns to believe."
"For a long time, I went to bed early..."
- No, not that!
I have another one.
- OK...
"I am all the others.
Any man is all men."
Borges.
- Jean Genet said the same thing.
going to Morocco to film
Jean Genet's grave, facing the sea,
simple and bare
as the grave of a Greek hero
a walk on the edge
of a world in perdition
going to Basel
to see Holbein's Dead Christ,
like Dostoevsky did,
with his wife Anna
Dostoevsky said:
"You mustn't ask
too much of human nature,
one must be merciful."
There is Christ.
His miracles made him famous,
and everything went fine
up until then.
But there is this moment of doubt,
terrible doubt.
His followers leave
one after another.
Even the apostles doubt.
Even he doubts.
He asks them
why they are still there,
why they too don't leave.
And Simon answers:
"To whom would we go?"
In the room,
they both approach the Dead Christ
and Dostoevsky,
overwhelmed by emotion,
whispers to Anna:
"This picture could make one
lose his faith."
avoid fashions,
work with your own sensitivity
how to do that
in filmmaking?
as doubt and fragility
get stronger and stronger
as the more films I make,
the more I build on doubt
Fishermen singing.
portrait of Jeanne,
sound engineer
Street in Lisbon, afternoon.
These are frogs
in a little pond
close to Voltera.
Gathering of herds
at the end of the day,
on the shores of Lake Ala Kul.
School atmosphere
with accordionist
playing in the middle
of the playground.
Flies at the entrance
of a yurt.
Night atmosphere
in Mekele,
at two in the morning.
Singing of Kyrghyz shepherdess,
Kyrghyzstan.
Blackbird singing at Eric's place,
on a Friday evening.
good news for the film:
Olivier can go to the Solomon Islands
to bring us back images
of the musicians he adores
a few reels of film,
the old 8mm camera and he's off!
rain all day
"Maria had a child,
a baby daughter.
People found her adorable,
they hugged her
and wearied her
with caresses and kisses.
Maria was
breastfeeding the child herself.
One day, I saw her
uncover her breast
and present it to her baby.
It was full and round,
with dark skin and azure veins
showing beneath the ardent flesh.
Until then, I had never
seen a naked woman.
What singular ecstasy the view
of that breast plunged me into!
I devoured it with my eyes.
How I wished to simply touch it!
If I placed my lips upon it, my teeth
would have bitten into it with frenzy.
And my heart melted away
in delight,
as I thought of the thrill
such a kiss would bring."
we have all been children
and remember the breast,
first object of desire
Veronica Franco
was one of the great
Venetian courtesans.
Tintoretto
painted her several times.
But this painting is unique
for its tension:
the tension between
the gesture of baring herself
and avoiding eye contact,
the tension
between giving and rejecting.
Tell me when you're filming.
- It's rolling.
death of Paul Anrieu
remembering an experiment, filmed
long ago under the influence of alcohol
Hamlet take two.
"To be or not to be?
That is the question."
Yes, go ahead, drink.
It's just to keep track of the amount
and the time.
Before each of the following takes,
Paul Anrieu will drink
two large glasses of alcohol
until exhaustion.
It's good stuff.
But you can't drink it so fast.
You can set your own rhythm.
Hamlet take three.
"Who would fardels bear,
to grunt and sweat
under a weary life,
but that the fear
of something after death..."
Hamlet take four.
"Conscience does make
cowards of us all."
Hamlet take five.
"The fear of something
after death,
that undiscovered country,
from where
no traveler returns
puzzles the will..."
The text seems to be coming
pretty automatically.
More or less.
More or less.
Hamlet take six.
It's rolling...
or spinning, I'd say.
Because now...
Let's try to remember
what this is about.
"To die, to sleep.
To sleep?
Perchance to dream.
Ay, there's the rub."
Hamlet take seven.
"Thus conscience...
does make
cowards of us all."
Hamlet take eight.
"And thus
conscience does make
cowards of us.
Cowards of us all!"
farewell Paul, you who were
brave enough to try this experiment
drunkenness overcame you,
but Hamlet held you up
self-awareness
is the most fragile thing
Zola and the love of animals
One must remember the anecdote
in which Zola,
taking notes and
doing research for Germinal,
went down a coal mine
for the first time.
There, coming across a horse
in the tunnels
he asked how such a beast
had been brought down
in such a small lift.
The miners,
laughing at this bourgeois question,
replied that the beast
had been there for years,
deep in the mine,
pulling wagons,
that it had been brought down young,
when still a foal.
Zola was known
for his love of animals,
which always shone through
in his works.
I wanted to find what Zola
wrote of them in his novel.
Indeed, his writer's compassion
is equal to the shock
he felt during his research.
The lines are magnificent.
He speaks of the horses
"as if tortured
by regret for the light."
There is an old horse
and a younger one.
Zola writes:
"They lived with lowered heads,
breathing in
each other's nostrils,
exchanging a constant
dream of daylight,
visions of green grass,
of white roads,
of infinite yellow light.
The old one
could no longer remember,
the young one
could not forget."
no news from Olivier
no news from the other side
of the world
revisiting the secrets
in the treasure box
my grandfather gave me long ago...
breast tree
...until I found the film fetish, which is
doing its best to bring Olivier back
Passport Application Form
fictional representation
of the Solomon Islands
each instant
unique,
fragile as a dream
night of September 30th
to September 31st
what if,
for a few days,
like a secret miracle,
September wasn't over
for the duration
of a novel?
Right, it's time to start
this novel.
It's set in Indonesia
in the eighties.
He was returning from Celebes,
east of Borneo,
and taking a plane to Bali.
He thought he was the only white person
on the little propeller plane,
which could carry ten people,
when an American,
rather chubby and totally drunk,
collapsed near him
in a vacant seat.
Since the American
was mumbling away, incoherent
- only the name of the Javanese
town of Surabaya was clear -
he got the impression
the man was going to Surabaya,
and had boarded the wrong plane,
since this one
was going to Bali.
He tried to explain
to the man his mistake
so he could get off
before takeoff.
But the man was too drunk
and just kept repeating
he was going to Surabaya.
The plane took off, but after
half an hour of bumpy flight,
the captain announced they
were heading into a giant tropical storm
and must land in Java
for the night.
It was the rainy season
and they landed
on a flooded airfield.
When the plane finally stopped,
he could see the hut
that served as airport through the rain.
A neon lit up the name of the city
where they had landed: Surabaya.
Feeling the immobility
of the craft,
the American awoke,
still drunk,
and tried to get up
and step off the plane.
The man tried to tell him that,
as amazing as it might seem,
they were in Surabaya after all.
Without a glance,
and pushing ahead of him,
the American answered,
staggering:
"Of course we're in Surabaya."
So, that's the beginning:
the story of this man
who gets what he wants
without noticing a thing,
almost despite himself,
and who sets the tone
for the whole novel.
time passes...
at last...
a package arrives
from the Solomon Islands!
I'm staying in Paradise.
Imagining the plot of a novel
is a happy occupation.
Going so far as to write it
is an exaggeration. J.L. Borges
It's the story of a man
who dedicated his life to God,
but he himself
doubted so much,
that with his faith built on doubt,
he never convinced anyone.
For a long time, he was
a missionary in New Caledonia,
among the Kanaks
and he became friends with them.
He was aware he'd never
really converted anyone,
but at least, after thirty years,
he left as their friend.
At his farewell party,
he pointed out to the chief
that he had at least taught them
what a soul was.
But the chief replied
that they'd known about souls
for a long time.
Their religion taught them
what a soul was.
Whereas the missionary's religion
had taught them
the importance of the body
and the flesh.
He then returned to Europe
and he was given a little parish,
lost somewhere in the south,
a village where only
a few families and old people lived.
He became friends
with the carpenter,
a married man
who had two children.
It was a remote village
and only the postman
connected them to the outside world.
But one day, the postman
ran off with the carpenter's wife
and they were never seen again.
So the carpenter,
alone and in despair,
killed himself
along with his 8-year-old son
and his 3-year-old daughter.
The priest found himself
with the three coffins
in his little run-down church
and burst out sobbing,
and cried for a long time.
He cried the void of heaven
and the solitude of man.
Those three coffins
left him in a world without God,
and for the first time,
he was cold in his little church.
He gave up everything
and left.
His soul destroyed,
he was left with the illusion
of finding salvation through the flesh.
to live without love
is to die every day.
We must finish telling the story
of the man abandoned by God.
His life became
a slow descent into hell,
where flesh submerged everything.
As he drifted, he met
a sick adolescent girl on the run,
who led him into debauchery
for she knew she was condemned
and didn't want to die a virgin.
From town to town,
from alcove to alcove,
they corrupted each other
into the unspeakable,
until her death.
Then, alone,
he continued his descent,
step by step,
first here, then abroad
where he fled.
He is now at the end
of his journey,
the journey that took him
back to Asia.
Nighttime. The bus,
on which he is the only foreigner,
is driving along a little asphalt road
in the jungle.
Suddenly, a young elephant
crosses the road
and crashes into
the front of the bus.
The impact is dreadful.
The headlamps shatter
and it is night.
Everyone gets out of the bus
and sits in a circle
around the dying elephant.
Answering the elephant's
weakening cries,
echo calls from the jungle
and trumpeting from the herd.
Above them, the Milky Way.
It is the last night
he remembers
as a human living among humans.
It is thus there,
in the Tropics,
that he hits the bottom
of drunkenness and drugs,
devastated by the flesh.
After a night of debauchery
on psychotropic substances,
no longer knowing who he is,
he climbs to the top of a dune.
He is in such a state that he weeps,
dribbles and soils himself.
He is a wreck.
And suddenly,
before the starry night,
he feels torn open,
quartered, and projected
outside of himself
up to the firmament of stars
shining in the night.
At the same time,
he feels all these heavenly bodies,
all these worlds, all these stars,
are inside him,
deep within.
A terrible feeling, to be torn
and flung into the vast universe.
A terrible feeling to carry
the whole universe within,
to be the universe.
It lasts for hours
and when he comes round
at dawn,
on top of the dune,
undone, haggard, soaked,
he knows he won't go any further,
that his journey is over,
that he has found
the meaning of everything,
of consciousness
and the movement of time.
He looks back
and understands that flesh,
his long dive into flesh,
into the terror of flesh,
stopped the flow of time.
Now time resumed its course.
And that was a good thing.
For the film
led up to this moment,
the whole film
led up to this instant,
where the flow of days
comes to an end,
leaving the spectator,
having shared this illusion,
in his regained freedom,
in his own time.
Subtitling:
Tongues Untied
September 1st
feeding the carp
diary,
chronology of the passing days
you too, have known this,
happy days, followed by days of doubt
I show you all these moments
take good care of them
there is cause,
or of the little space left for chance
Shall I play?
portrait of Anahit
going through
30 years of correspondence
I come across the self-portraits
Walter sent over the years
I take the train
to meet with him after all this time,
and do his portrait
found the egg of a Cyclops
I remember
I have always loved,
more than anything,
the sound of bagpipes.
In a previous life, not long ago,
I remember it well,
I was in Her Majesty's
Royal Scots Guards regiment
and we experienced
the shortest battle of all time.
It was in South Africa.
We were going to fight Zulus,
thousands of Zulus.
With our bagpipes
and our uniforms,
ahead of the other regiments,
we were first to arrive
at the top of the hill.
When the Zulu tribesmen saw us,
they thought women in skirts
playing music,
had been sent to fight them.
In disgust,
they threw their spears
and shields to the ground
and left.
portrait of Gilles
What is this foreign land
that lies between two nights?
It is the day.
meeting with Eugénie,
now a vocalist
this morning, at my door
as I was filming, the barrel organ player
passed behind me
it was the last time I saw him
ah, little spiders
in your nursery,
you too feel
how exciting life is
I've something better
to play for you.
Olivier and his favorite music
from the Solomon Islands
We always come back to this.
They're so beautiful!
antarctic poetry
(in memory of Stany)
when the fog would lift
on the pack ice,
we would sometimes see
a man in the distance,
made tiny by the horizon
yet all the men in the crew,
all of them,
were sure they
could see him cry
back on land,
some of them said
that the sunbeams
were reflected in his tears
night of September 12th to 13th
things brought back from the night
It's a waiting room,
early in the morning,
where haggard people,
suitcases at their feet,
await the bus
to another country.
It's an ocean liner
that unendingly leaves the port,
prolonging the suffering
of a farewell.
It's a heavy truck
without a driver
on a highway parking lot.
It's a hotel room
where he sheds tears of joy.
It's the shadow of his hand
on the words he writes
when he writes at night.
It's the first morning bus
to cross the intersection.
It's the image of a tower
from the top of which
it would be easy to throw oneself.
It's the photo of an animal
who stops to pose
in front of the slaughterhouse.
It's a man
ashamed of cheating
who cheats anyway.
twenty years later, I make
another portrait of Mohamed,
at the pool
where he works
When you meet
with Mohamed's smile,
your day is not wasted
for a long time now,
every time I visit Jacqueline,
I give her a tiny object
I come across them again,
all kept together
"We all wake up in the same place
of the dream.
Everything begins in this world
and finishes elsewhere." Victor Hugo.
There should be a place
where one could get relief from death.
"Choosing a quote
is like auditioning an actor."
M.A. Ouaknin
Is everybody ready?
Let's do it.
"There is no other remedy
for life and death
than to enjoy
that which separates them."
Good, thank you.
Next!
"To live without love
is to die every day."
Lovely. Who said that?
- Mrs du Deffand.
"Maria had a child,
a baby daughter.
People found her adorable,
they wearied her with kisses..."
No, no, no...
- But it's Flaubert!
Yeah, OK, but...
We'll see later.
"Sound films invented silence."
Thank you.
"The best things in museums,
are the windows."
Very good. Who said that?
- Pierre Bonnard, the painter.
"One must learn to doubt
before one learns to believe."
"For a long time, I went to bed early..."
- No, not that!
I have another one.
- OK...
"I am all the others.
Any man is all men."
Borges.
- Jean Genet said the same thing.
going to Morocco to film
Jean Genet's grave, facing the sea,
simple and bare
as the grave of a Greek hero
a walk on the edge
of a world in perdition
going to Basel
to see Holbein's Dead Christ,
like Dostoevsky did,
with his wife Anna
Dostoevsky said:
"You mustn't ask
too much of human nature,
one must be merciful."
There is Christ.
His miracles made him famous,
and everything went fine
up until then.
But there is this moment of doubt,
terrible doubt.
His followers leave
one after another.
Even the apostles doubt.
Even he doubts.
He asks them
why they are still there,
why they too don't leave.
And Simon answers:
"To whom would we go?"
In the room,
they both approach the Dead Christ
and Dostoevsky,
overwhelmed by emotion,
whispers to Anna:
"This picture could make one
lose his faith."
avoid fashions,
work with your own sensitivity
how to do that
in filmmaking?
as doubt and fragility
get stronger and stronger
as the more films I make,
the more I build on doubt
Fishermen singing.
portrait of Jeanne,
sound engineer
Street in Lisbon, afternoon.
These are frogs
in a little pond
close to Voltera.
Gathering of herds
at the end of the day,
on the shores of Lake Ala Kul.
School atmosphere
with accordionist
playing in the middle
of the playground.
Flies at the entrance
of a yurt.
Night atmosphere
in Mekele,
at two in the morning.
Singing of Kyrghyz shepherdess,
Kyrghyzstan.
Blackbird singing at Eric's place,
on a Friday evening.
good news for the film:
Olivier can go to the Solomon Islands
to bring us back images
of the musicians he adores
a few reels of film,
the old 8mm camera and he's off!
rain all day
"Maria had a child,
a baby daughter.
People found her adorable,
they hugged her
and wearied her
with caresses and kisses.
Maria was
breastfeeding the child herself.
One day, I saw her
uncover her breast
and present it to her baby.
It was full and round,
with dark skin and azure veins
showing beneath the ardent flesh.
Until then, I had never
seen a naked woman.
What singular ecstasy the view
of that breast plunged me into!
I devoured it with my eyes.
How I wished to simply touch it!
If I placed my lips upon it, my teeth
would have bitten into it with frenzy.
And my heart melted away
in delight,
as I thought of the thrill
such a kiss would bring."
we have all been children
and remember the breast,
first object of desire
Veronica Franco
was one of the great
Venetian courtesans.
Tintoretto
painted her several times.
But this painting is unique
for its tension:
the tension between
the gesture of baring herself
and avoiding eye contact,
the tension
between giving and rejecting.
Tell me when you're filming.
- It's rolling.
death of Paul Anrieu
remembering an experiment, filmed
long ago under the influence of alcohol
Hamlet take two.
"To be or not to be?
That is the question."
Yes, go ahead, drink.
It's just to keep track of the amount
and the time.
Before each of the following takes,
Paul Anrieu will drink
two large glasses of alcohol
until exhaustion.
It's good stuff.
But you can't drink it so fast.
You can set your own rhythm.
Hamlet take three.
"Who would fardels bear,
to grunt and sweat
under a weary life,
but that the fear
of something after death..."
Hamlet take four.
"Conscience does make
cowards of us all."
Hamlet take five.
"The fear of something
after death,
that undiscovered country,
from where
no traveler returns
puzzles the will..."
The text seems to be coming
pretty automatically.
More or less.
More or less.
Hamlet take six.
It's rolling...
or spinning, I'd say.
Because now...
Let's try to remember
what this is about.
"To die, to sleep.
To sleep?
Perchance to dream.
Ay, there's the rub."
Hamlet take seven.
"Thus conscience...
does make
cowards of us all."
Hamlet take eight.
"And thus
conscience does make
cowards of us.
Cowards of us all!"
farewell Paul, you who were
brave enough to try this experiment
drunkenness overcame you,
but Hamlet held you up
self-awareness
is the most fragile thing
Zola and the love of animals
One must remember the anecdote
in which Zola,
taking notes and
doing research for Germinal,
went down a coal mine
for the first time.
There, coming across a horse
in the tunnels
he asked how such a beast
had been brought down
in such a small lift.
The miners,
laughing at this bourgeois question,
replied that the beast
had been there for years,
deep in the mine,
pulling wagons,
that it had been brought down young,
when still a foal.
Zola was known
for his love of animals,
which always shone through
in his works.
I wanted to find what Zola
wrote of them in his novel.
Indeed, his writer's compassion
is equal to the shock
he felt during his research.
The lines are magnificent.
He speaks of the horses
"as if tortured
by regret for the light."
There is an old horse
and a younger one.
Zola writes:
"They lived with lowered heads,
breathing in
each other's nostrils,
exchanging a constant
dream of daylight,
visions of green grass,
of white roads,
of infinite yellow light.
The old one
could no longer remember,
the young one
could not forget."
no news from Olivier
no news from the other side
of the world
revisiting the secrets
in the treasure box
my grandfather gave me long ago...
breast tree
...until I found the film fetish, which is
doing its best to bring Olivier back
Passport Application Form
fictional representation
of the Solomon Islands
each instant
unique,
fragile as a dream
night of September 30th
to September 31st
what if,
for a few days,
like a secret miracle,
September wasn't over
for the duration
of a novel?
Right, it's time to start
this novel.
It's set in Indonesia
in the eighties.
He was returning from Celebes,
east of Borneo,
and taking a plane to Bali.
He thought he was the only white person
on the little propeller plane,
which could carry ten people,
when an American,
rather chubby and totally drunk,
collapsed near him
in a vacant seat.
Since the American
was mumbling away, incoherent
- only the name of the Javanese
town of Surabaya was clear -
he got the impression
the man was going to Surabaya,
and had boarded the wrong plane,
since this one
was going to Bali.
He tried to explain
to the man his mistake
so he could get off
before takeoff.
But the man was too drunk
and just kept repeating
he was going to Surabaya.
The plane took off, but after
half an hour of bumpy flight,
the captain announced they
were heading into a giant tropical storm
and must land in Java
for the night.
It was the rainy season
and they landed
on a flooded airfield.
When the plane finally stopped,
he could see the hut
that served as airport through the rain.
A neon lit up the name of the city
where they had landed: Surabaya.
Feeling the immobility
of the craft,
the American awoke,
still drunk,
and tried to get up
and step off the plane.
The man tried to tell him that,
as amazing as it might seem,
they were in Surabaya after all.
Without a glance,
and pushing ahead of him,
the American answered,
staggering:
"Of course we're in Surabaya."
So, that's the beginning:
the story of this man
who gets what he wants
without noticing a thing,
almost despite himself,
and who sets the tone
for the whole novel.
time passes...
at last...
a package arrives
from the Solomon Islands!
I'm staying in Paradise.
Imagining the plot of a novel
is a happy occupation.
Going so far as to write it
is an exaggeration. J.L. Borges
It's the story of a man
who dedicated his life to God,
but he himself
doubted so much,
that with his faith built on doubt,
he never convinced anyone.
For a long time, he was
a missionary in New Caledonia,
among the Kanaks
and he became friends with them.
He was aware he'd never
really converted anyone,
but at least, after thirty years,
he left as their friend.
At his farewell party,
he pointed out to the chief
that he had at least taught them
what a soul was.
But the chief replied
that they'd known about souls
for a long time.
Their religion taught them
what a soul was.
Whereas the missionary's religion
had taught them
the importance of the body
and the flesh.
He then returned to Europe
and he was given a little parish,
lost somewhere in the south,
a village where only
a few families and old people lived.
He became friends
with the carpenter,
a married man
who had two children.
It was a remote village
and only the postman
connected them to the outside world.
But one day, the postman
ran off with the carpenter's wife
and they were never seen again.
So the carpenter,
alone and in despair,
killed himself
along with his 8-year-old son
and his 3-year-old daughter.
The priest found himself
with the three coffins
in his little run-down church
and burst out sobbing,
and cried for a long time.
He cried the void of heaven
and the solitude of man.
Those three coffins
left him in a world without God,
and for the first time,
he was cold in his little church.
He gave up everything
and left.
His soul destroyed,
he was left with the illusion
of finding salvation through the flesh.
to live without love
is to die every day.
We must finish telling the story
of the man abandoned by God.
His life became
a slow descent into hell,
where flesh submerged everything.
As he drifted, he met
a sick adolescent girl on the run,
who led him into debauchery
for she knew she was condemned
and didn't want to die a virgin.
From town to town,
from alcove to alcove,
they corrupted each other
into the unspeakable,
until her death.
Then, alone,
he continued his descent,
step by step,
first here, then abroad
where he fled.
He is now at the end
of his journey,
the journey that took him
back to Asia.
Nighttime. The bus,
on which he is the only foreigner,
is driving along a little asphalt road
in the jungle.
Suddenly, a young elephant
crosses the road
and crashes into
the front of the bus.
The impact is dreadful.
The headlamps shatter
and it is night.
Everyone gets out of the bus
and sits in a circle
around the dying elephant.
Answering the elephant's
weakening cries,
echo calls from the jungle
and trumpeting from the herd.
Above them, the Milky Way.
It is the last night
he remembers
as a human living among humans.
It is thus there,
in the Tropics,
that he hits the bottom
of drunkenness and drugs,
devastated by the flesh.
After a night of debauchery
on psychotropic substances,
no longer knowing who he is,
he climbs to the top of a dune.
He is in such a state that he weeps,
dribbles and soils himself.
He is a wreck.
And suddenly,
before the starry night,
he feels torn open,
quartered, and projected
outside of himself
up to the firmament of stars
shining in the night.
At the same time,
he feels all these heavenly bodies,
all these worlds, all these stars,
are inside him,
deep within.
A terrible feeling, to be torn
and flung into the vast universe.
A terrible feeling to carry
the whole universe within,
to be the universe.
It lasts for hours
and when he comes round
at dawn,
on top of the dune,
undone, haggard, soaked,
he knows he won't go any further,
that his journey is over,
that he has found
the meaning of everything,
of consciousness
and the movement of time.
He looks back
and understands that flesh,
his long dive into flesh,
into the terror of flesh,
stopped the flow of time.
Now time resumed its course.
And that was a good thing.
For the film
led up to this moment,
the whole film
led up to this instant,
where the flow of days
comes to an end,
leaving the spectator,
having shared this illusion,
in his regained freedom,
in his own time.
Subtitling:
Tongues Untied