Ne croyez surtout pas que je hurle (2019) - full transcript

JUST DON'T THINK I'LL SCREAM

I watched over 400 films
between April and October 2016.

This footage comes from them.

I'm 45 years old.

I've lived for 6 years,
in an apartment

in a tiny, picturesque Alsace village
about 50 kms

from Strasbourg,
in the Northern Vosges national park.

7 months ago, I separated
from my partner with whom I'd decided

to settle here
to be close to nature

and live more comfortably
than our income permitted in Paris.

I knew the village
as I had shot a short film there



and my mother, after remarrying,
moved to a neighboring village.

When we broke up, I had
no driving license in this lonely place

where people watch
behind the veiled curtains

of their windows,
all decorated with geranium planters.

The Alsatian dialect is omnipresent.

I rarely hear French,

and even then,
it's dreadfully polluted by germanisms.

The nearest station is 30 kms away,
there are no buses,

no local shops or even

a cash machine
within a 2-hour walk.

I suffer this exile,
far from Paris, in this place

where the opulence of nature
hides from the untrained eye

the Protestant, almost always
right-wing stiffness of its inhabitants.

Most of them grew up here.
School, soccer club,



marrying a local girl:

work, family,

village.

When you come from the next village,
you're already a foreigner.

The locals build or renovate
large houses with gardens

to show they live well,

cleanly, decently.

They live well.

Major companies in the region
are still hiring.

There are 3 churches
for 500 people.

It's hard to quench
one's thirst for culture.

There's a book corner
which is mainly used

by pink, chubby kids.

Less than 20 adults
visit it regularly.

In summer, countless tourists
march past my windows.

They spend 45 minutes visiting
old troglodytic dwellings.

There are a few dances

dominated by polkas
and German light music.

At times, you might think

you were 50 years ago.

Or 75 years ago.

Obviously, the election results are

chilling.

The people I've met here and love
live in isolation.

It's wise to withdraw.

Exchanges are rare.

My only relations
with the outside world

are bimonthly raids
on the nearest supermarket,

driven by my mother,
and Sunday meals

which at least give me
some human contact.

In November, I played a hermit
in a friend's film.

Before we'd finished,
the terrorists struck in Paris.

The next day,
a state of emergency was declared.

I face the start of the year
with apprehension, disgust

and fear.

Here, there's nobody
to exchange ideas with,

let alone share them.

I know I should leave,

return to Paris, and reconnect
with my friends and peers.

That's materially impossible.

This winter isn't particularly cold.
It hasn't been for several years.

It's just sorry and sad,
indifferent and grey,

apart from some shafts of light
in the late afternoon.

The woods are bare,

nature dull and asleep.

I hardly ever leave home,
and when I do,

the solitary walker isn't
in a state of mind that favors reverie.

He feels helpless

and wounded.

I discovered a drunken solitude

which gradually turned into vertigo.

Living alone is the pleasure of living
at my pace. I don't sleep much.

I have 18-hour days at my disposal.

Apart from daily obligations:

feeding the animals and myself,

keeping the place in order.

My retirement gives me

a lot of spare time.

I'm too feverish to read for long

and I don't see anyone.

I don't see the outside world.
I try to think of it

through the films
that I see day and night.

It's almost my only occupation,

except for selling on the internet,

which keeps me going between jobs.

Like a rural Vernon Subutex,

I sell discs, DVDs, and books
on the web.

Twice a week,
I ship to the whole world:

I print order forms, I pack,

I tape, I bubblewrap,

I stamp, I mail.

It kills a little time.

Otherwise, 3, 4, even 5 films a day.

Since the break-up,
the pace has picked up.

Today, there are mountains of DVDs
in every corner. Thousands of them.

And over the years I have become

a formidable internet film digger.

Illegal downloading
has no secrets for me,

from warez sites to Youtube channels,
I pick out whatever intrigues me,

films I never had access to

and always wanted to see,
the most improbable discoveries:

silent movies out of copyright,

pre-Code Hollywood gems,

incunabula of Soviet cinema,

Scandinavian erotic films, gialli,

pink films, German dramas,

70s Euro-thrillers...

Anything goes, and I can't stop.

I manage my downloads, I archive,

I go to bed,
and I start again the next day.

I literally sink into others' films,

lose all desire to write, film, do
anything other than watch others' films.

The nest becomes a niche,
the refuge a prison.

And others' films are
no more than mirrors, not windows.

I always face the screen,

in the 3-seater sofa
in the living room.

At my side, the ghost's chair,
which cruelly reminds me

of the most difficult moment
endured within these walls.

That was almost 3 years ago.

My father was found dehydrated
in his small apartment. He lived alone.

A week in hospital
and a positive checkup,

except for his very low morale.

I'd only seen him
about 15 times in 20 years.

I'd gone from hating him
as a teenager

to silence, then indifference.

During the 2 decades that had passed
since I left home,

I had grown without him, or rather,

against him.

My brothers still saw him sometimes
whereas I'd lost touch.

I agreed to see him again
after many years, when he sought

to get closer to his children
he knew so little

and so to his eldest son,

me, who had always clashed with him.

We saw each other once or twice a year
for long, embarrassed afternoons

when so as not to open old wounds
and hurt each other,

we ended up saying almost nothing
over a board game.

These rare but boring moments
gave me a good conscience

at little cost.

These lukewarm reunions
must have done him good,

and I no longer felt the will
to refuse him.

The hospital doctors,
worried by his depressive state,

had prescribed a stay
in a nursing home, advising him

not to return home alone.

Admission
could not take place for a week.

My brothers couldn't take care of him

during that time,
so I reluctantly agreed

to take him in.

I went through the first days
with an irritation I had trouble hiding.

That of feeding, caring

for this dull,
totally disoriented father who kept,

despite his confusion,
his stubbornness, defeatism,

machismo, resentment,
narrow outlook from a time

I hadn't known,
from which he hadn't escaped.

A father I had nothing
in common with. My father.

My father. The Tour de France.

The railroad.

Parades. The accordion.

Que sera, sera.

"The Priest's Maid" song.

Sport.
Le Douanier Rousseau.

His obsolete idea of virility,

conjugality, paternity.

The animal TV shows.

Soccer.

Charlie Hebdo. Betting.

My father born in 1940.
Lower middle class.

The postwar boom.
His modest dreams.

The fear of what people will say
if you step out of line.

Of not making ends meet.

My father. Dissatisfied. Bitter.

Beaten.

He never supported my choices.

"In film, everyone sleeps around.

Artists are all fags."

He never supported me at all.

Only he ever used
the loathsome nickname, Frankus.

At the hospital, he insisted
on hugging me

and saying

what he'd never said:

that he loved me.

My father. My antinomy.

I make the necessary effort.

But conversations falter
and quickly die out.

Time slows down, minutes weigh tons.

His distress prevents him
from concentrating

or killing time with Scrabble games
or TV shows.

He is helpless. Sleeps little.

Confuses his meds.
Wakes up way before us.

Goes round in circles.

His gestures betray his inner agitation.
He knows something's wrong.

He's revolted by the idea
of psychiatric treatment.

I wait to be relieved,
for time to pass,

for when I'm relieved
of a responsibility that crushes me.

Evenings are the most trying.

On the 4th or 5th day, I remember
his admiration for Charles Vanel.

A patriarchal figure
as he liked them

à la Gabin, Bourvil,
Pierre Fresnay, Noël-Noël.

I thought he might enjoy
Grémillon's "The Sky is Yours",

a film from his childhood.

After 30 minutes,
unlike the previous nights,

he is still awake in his chair.

He seems to follow it. I'm pleased
I've found something that interests him

or at least doesn't leave him
totally apathetic.

I share a film I love with my father,
which is a first.

When his legs suddenly rise
and spasm,

I don't immediately get
what's happening.

The mechanical movement recurs.

His arms too
begin to beat the air.

My friend sees it's a malaise
and rushes to him.

I finally realize. I'm tetanized.

On screen,
Madeleine Renaud flies off.

My father loses consciousness.

I'm paralyzed.
My friend takes charge.

Taps him on the cheek
to bring him round.

Icy water.
Gets him on the floor.

My friend compresses his sternum.
Helpless,

I grab on to his arms.

I try to find the words.

We need an ambulance.
It'll take 30 minutes.

My father briefly opens his eyes,
whispers incoherent words.

He recognizes me,
says a few forgettable words:

"No point resisting.
When you gotta go, you gotta go."

And he faints again.

He never comes back.

It's over.
He came to my house to die.

I saw a man die before my eyes,

in my arms. I don't understand.

I'm angry. His last words specifically
make me angry.

Why to me? Why here?

Why now? And why die
in front of a movie?

Why "The Sky is Yours"?

I've relived this scene for months.

I thought I'd die 100 times
in front of every movie since.

Nervous impulses,
tightness in the chest,

sharp tingling
in the fingers and toes.

The absurd, incessant idea
that it's my turn next,

that this spectator's place
is now linked to death.

And yet I didn't abandon it.

Almost 3 years later, in April 2016,

I still occupy it.

In Alsace, where the Napoleonic
regime was never repealed,

church is not officially
separated from state.

People fiercely defend, out of pride and
by a sacrosanct respect for tradition,

its anachronistic singularity.

Catechism is still taught in school.
It seems normal for priests

to be paid by the taxpayer
and in the land of the stork,

they are ready to defend

the two additional holidays
granted by

this obsolete status.

They don't work on December 26
or Good Friday.

No reform has overcome
these regional privileges.

Easter is lived as a 2nd Christmas

with obscene family reunions
around a leg of lamb,

the egg hunt organized
for the youngest by the old folk

they call, in a tribal atavism
and a rigid deference to the past,

the "elders".

Every opportunity

to consume, to feast,
to have a last drink

because "we've earned a day off",
to show off

one's prosperous well-being,

one's blond, docile brood,
is worth taking.

There's no trifling with holy days,

traditions or respectability.

I have nothing to celebrate,
certainly not

the resurrection of Christ.

The days grow longer, the temperature
rises timidly. It's spring.

Like every year,
the grass turns green again,

the cuckoos and dandelions appear.

I pull my basket out of a closet
and pick

greenery for Sarah Jane,

the rabbit I put on my balcony,
shortly after I arrived.

I do this so I go out
at least once a day,

to get some air and interrupt

the things I do frantically

to avoid being faced with myself.

I haven't been able to write for ages,

so it's intolerable to feel unoccupied.

I avoid feeling idle
by considering everything as work:

sorting my records, folding laundry,
fixing meals, watching films.

I know that if boredom
were to enter my solitude,

it would be too real for me
to continue to cherish it.

The gaps plugged by my routine
could give way.

I'd be forced to look at the face

I see in the mirror

when I wake up:

the single 40-year-old
with puffy features,

bloodshot eyes,
soft complexion, muscles and belly.

The first woe of the day.

Is that the face I deserve?
And what does it mean?

My failures? My inner fights?

20 years of sleepless nights?

My weaknesses?
My addictions? My resignations?

I feel I've become

a tragicomic character
in a Blake Edwards film:

a little man pinned up

by a midlife crisis without warning
and who rush

into a maze of pathetic lies
and pettiness,

in search of carefree lost youth
rather than a real second wind.

But we love them
because, despite their cowardice,

they're shown
with the tender cruelty

of he who imagines them
and watches them struggle.

These fictional characters
fall back on their feet.

No-one looks at me.
My reflection in the mirror inspires

no leniency in me.

So I close the shutters
and return

to my screen,
the place of magnificent obsessions

where the mirages of life
seem sublime.

The country, that of newspapers,
information, especially cities,

stations, airports,
administrations, theaters

is still in a state of emergency.

Those in power
maintain their best ally:

fear, using police controls,
military surveillance,

and raids.

They call for a sense of duty
and citizens' vigilance,

stir up mistrust and suspicion,

brandish and misuse
the tired rags of Republican values.

The watchdogs toy with secularism,

national sovereignty and freedom.

Ideas don't circulate - ramparts,
screens, scarecrows, fetishes do.

In the village, where I speak to no-one,
this security trance is imperceptible.

The only uniforms or flashing lights
you see are the fire department

or the police who settle a dispute
between neighbors or record a suicide.

A bit more here than elsewhere,

people hang themselves
and choose to end it all.

In Strasbourg, as in all of France,
people have begun to rise up at night

reacting against a moribund government
whose only program is capitalism.

I'm intrigued by these debates

and even think, at times,
of taking a closer look.

I naturally support resistance
to the dictatorship of profitability

over maintaining
plutocracy and nepotism.

Activists
have always appealed to me.

But my mistrust of collective movements
and group ideologies quickly takes over.

On my computer, I follow the evolution
of "Nuit Debout" ("Rise Up At Night"),

a few friends' fervent commitments,

but I know I don't belong
and I feel it's a losing battle.

I question those who went,
those who were mere observers,

a few others who were more involved,

but my close friends
are unanimously skeptical.

We're wary
it could be taken over

and mock the adolescent candor

of the debates
and the appearance of hot dog stands

at the demonstrations.

My approval and support remain
theoretical, silent, without effect.

Deep down, maybe I find
this form of protest

too gentle, too conciliatory.

I feel too old for the revolution,
which we're a long way from,

and too young for renunciation.

I'm in a no man's land
of doubt and contained anger.

Lost, disillusioned,
on the fringes of events,

probably lagging behind as well.

I go to Paris at the end of the month.
It does me good.

It gives me this renewed pleasure
each time I arrive

to mingle with a myriad
of different passers-by.

The same aesthetic euphoria grips me
each time. Everyone is beautiful

with their differences:
skin color, clothing style,

pace, behavior.

They walk the streets of Paris

with their diversity yet singularity.

As if everyone's inner music were unique
and became perceptible to me.

In the village, almost everyone has the
same complexion, physiognomy, and walk.

I almost forget
the image, albeit recent,

of the watching soldiers in fatigues,

machine-gun over the shoulder, dog on a
leash, pacing the station platforms.

Prince dies the day I arrive.

I remember his special place
in my adolescent fantasies,

the arousal
this sensual creature caused,

his ruffled shirts,

the color purple,
his black, exciting, vicious eyes.

Then, the evenings,
drinks, and lunches flash past.

I give myself up, at first,
to the joy of seeing old friends,

those with whom time rushes by.

Those with whom discussions
are easy and obvious,

references shared, agreement implicit.

I spend the week with an ex lover, near
my old home, in Paris's smallest avenue

which leads to Sacha Guitry's tomb
and Montmartre cemetery.

I break with the countryside's
ascetic rhythm.

Here no films, no obligations.
Nights are liquid, often intoxicating.

Afternoons go slowly in the kitchen,
bathed in grey light,

doing some reading at last.

My ex's roommate tells me
she intends to move out.

It is decided that when she left,
at the latest in the autumn,

I'd get her room.
The rent is reasonable

for Paris,
i.e. very expensive for me,

but I see a light
at the end of the tunnel.

I'll follow it, I'll leave.

I return to Alsace,
exhausted by the excesses,

and come to grips with the sudden return
to the silent monotony.

At first, I am nevertheless invigorated
by the prospect

of soon leaving this place where
I've talked to my ghosts for so long.

Relieved to have decided to go,

however adventurous
it may be materially.

But typically, the initial enthusiasm
soon gives way to anxiety and vertigo,

faced with all the tasks
to accomplish.

Over the years, I've accumulated
lots of furniture and objects.

And because of my obsessive nature,

I'm overwhelmed by thousands
of books, vinyl records, CDs, and DVDs.

So much so that I've gradually
colonized the attic.

Going from 100 square metre to 20,

I can't keep everything.

There'll be a battle between

my attachment to these objects

and the fact that I've buried myself
under these films, songs, and pages

and have become the consenting captive.

My Stockholm syndrome.

They're,
literally and figuratively, walls,

fortifications, pyramids
to be demolished.

But I firmly believe
this painful sacrifice is necessary.

I don't define myself
by what I own.

My identity doesn't consist of shelves.
I have to dump ballast

to get back up to the surface,

to the light of day,
though it seems so dull to me.

This forced decluttering
will free from all this cultural jumble

what really matters.
Choosing between

the indispensable
and the superfluous,

the essential and the decorative.

I know
that the process will be difficult.

Luckily, I have
a few months to go.

I decide to proceed
cubic meter by cubic meter,

cut back drastically,
without sentimentality or dishonesty,

sell things off on the net,
even at low prices,

put a little money aside
for the move.

Give to friends baroque music,

Marguerite Duras, Cecil de Mille.

Donate the books I won't read
to the local library.

Get rid of, restrict, diminish,

empty.

I need boxes, energy,
discernment, and time.

I'm working on it.

I alternate clearing and films.

On good days, I make progress.

On bad days, I see only
the Dantesque aspect of the task.

Like Sisyphus in pretzel land,
I feel I'm bailing out a boat.

At my windows, the month of May
struggles to raise the temperature,

the rain never stops,

soaking forest and paths,

stifling the ringing bells
every 15 minutes, day and night,

that reach the 2nd floor of my home.

I abandon myself

to the dreary succession of days
without light and without words,

except for the dialogue
on social media

with people like me
who can't sleep.

After the last film of the day,
at 1 AM,

I deaden my mind
with music, beer and joints

so as not to ruminate too much
and relax,

think about something else,
talk, play,

download, forget that the next day
will be like the day before.

I go to bed at sunrise.
A dreamless sleep

finally falls on me.

Another day without absolutes.

Nothing disturbs the routine of my days
which are all the same.

Screen, keyboard, packages, boxes,

cat, rabbit, dinner alone.

It's raining.
I read Virginie Despentes.

It's raining. I watch American films
for a festival's selection.

It's raining.
I listen to rap,

revel in Dooz Kawa,

Les Chevals Hongrois, Lucio Bukowski.

It challenges me,
looks the world in the eye,

oscillates between bitter observation,
poetic dazzling,

and the search for light.

One day, I get a call from a couple
of Portuguese director friends.

They're not far away,
on their way back to Lisbon

and suggest they call in.

Less than 2 hours later,
the two Joãos are in my kitchen.

The sky has courteously cleared.

We spend 2 days,
discussing the complicated shoot

of their last film
and eating and drinking.

We walk in the rainy forest,

watching birds,
gleaning wild mint

we used just after the walk
for improvised cocktails.

A delicate parenthesis
of empathy, fantasy, and jokes

that sadly closes too soon.

I think about the film I want to make
and try to go beyond a draft.

The diary or chronicle formats
seem the solution.

I question
the legitimacy of my words

and the relevance of my approach.

Using the first person singular:
isn't the gesture vain?

I've only kept a diary for a few days
due to a lack of perseverance

and a fear of sinking
into introspective onanism,

of not finding the distance

to relay and analyze the events
that punctuate my existence and my era.

Platitude, narcissism,

pride, dishonesty,

self-pity seem to be the genre's
many possible pitfalls.

How to avoid them?

And doesn't this undertaking,

based on the use of images I ingest,

hide a Machiavellian construction of
my sick mind to justify my cine-folly?

I conceive this project

with the idea of
becoming less passive,

making my film bulimia
dynamic and fruitful.

But I'm like an addict
who decides not to quit his habit,

but to observe and comment on them.

Is putting it at a distance
just illusory?

The project involves
the maintenance of my addiction

and maybe an increase
of this addiction.

How to free myself
from my fatal attraction for films,

an aesthetic rampart
against the vile world?

I persuade myself
that the main thing at the moment

is to ask these questions,
not answer them.

That's lucky - I couldn't.

In my valley
where folklore rhymes with identity,

so-called cultural events are usually
limited to theatrical farces in dialect

or harvest festivals.

I'm surprised to discover
a concert by Françoiz Breut

whose career I have followed.

The opening act is
a regional blues singer

who I've also been following.

All this is in a remote village
I don't recall ever going to.

I go there with my mother.

Miraculously, the evening is mild and
bright. They perform in the open air,

against the backdrop
of the hilly fields,

made iridescent
by a lazily setting sun.

The audience is attentive,
smiling, discreet.

Urchins and ragamuffins roam
the grass by the stage, carefree.

This evening that stretches generously
till after 12 AM is a happy exception.

It's like another place
and another time.

Françoiz Breut doesn't sing "Ecran
Total". I heard it a few days before.

It starts:

"Flashes in the reflection of his eyes
He looks for light in an abyss

He seems full of illusions
Eyes riveted on the screen"

I inevitably return to the screen.

I download 100 Soviet movies
in 3 days and

immerse myself
in East German films.

My attraction for this communist cinema

probably comes from the fact
that its characters

question their place in society,
their function,

their usefulness in a collective utopia.

They question power and work,
the exercise of authority,

education,
the transmission of history.

The hero of the East is in a
dialectical relationship with the world,

like a cog supposed to produce
an egalitarian society.

He is driven by an ideal.

I don't mind that this posture stems
from ideological indoctrination.

His dignity

makes him seem more amiable to me

than the Western character,
determined by a narrow idea of pleasure

which is an inalienable right.

The latter rarely defines himself
by his citizenship.

Above all, he claims his singularity.
He thinks he's out of the ordinary.

One dreams and produces,
the other consumes.

In early June,
it's often stormy here.

One night, a sandstone rock
above the village falls

onto the roof of a neighbor
who had threatened my crew

with a gun a few years ago

when I was filming nearby.

The incident makes me laugh.

I receive a new computer that I infest

with viruses within 3 days.

My old lover I have to move in with
in the fall helps me.

We spend a week reinstalling programs,
disinfecting USB ports,

booting, rebooting, querying

specialist forums.

And drinking. And eating.
And sharing movies.

I want to puke up
the last few days' news.

It's just happened

in the land of Titian
and Pasolini.

You can now buy
"Mein Kampf" everywhere.

It doesn't bother people much.
All's well.

In Florida, a fanatic

just shot 50 people in a gay club.

Each day relentlessly brings
its share of amazement, despair,

and mourning that keeps me inside
and encourages my social autism.

I'm on the brink of defeatism
and resignation.

But something inside me keeps screaming.
It's deafening.

My friend and I are going back to Paris.

He pushes me
to make the journey by carpool.

I tell myself that I'll stuff myself
with tranquilizers and pretend to sleep.

As soon as we put our bags

next to the golf clubs of the driver,
not much older than us,

I feel he's a satisfied embodiment
of the new economic order.

He doesn't smoke in the car.

He has a start-up and listens
to standardized world music.

He talks, because

with carpooling,
you meet different people.

He brags about his wife,

his kids, his certainties,

his success, his trips abroad.

"I sell apps to hotel chains that detect
customers' movements and purchases

to influence them.

What do you do?"

I keep quiet and bite my tongue.
In my head,

the lyrics of a song by Zippo
I discovered not long ago:

"Now I Have An Axe."

People are shouting on the
Boulevard de Clichy when we arrive.

Almost at once I regret having come
when I see the drunk, yelling horde

at the giant screen,
set up by City Hall,

to broadcast some soccer match.

This public gathering doesn't contravene
the state of emergency.

I guess you have to let go
of the bridle.

Nothing better than soccer to stifle
dissension, divert attention, create

the illusion "We're all together".
A useful distraction!

I drag my luggage through
the noisy mass of painted faces.

The soccer tricolor.

Collective fervor, triumphant idiocy,

beery chauvinism.

The splendor of the supporter!

All week,
I open the window and inhale

the stench of piss and puke
deposited in the night,

which flow in lumpy streams
in the gutter. All week,

bawdy songs, quarrels,
insults, screams,

outbursts of violence

rip my sleep apart.

Now that the date
for my move is set

for early October,
I doubt my decision and wonder

whether the hostile village isn't better
than this sad cheerful crowd.

I resist the temptation of the
synecdoche, but this part isn't a whole.

It isn't the tricolor that the opponents
of the Labor Law wave on June 14,

eager to curb the liberal excesses
of a government

that blithely scorns
its electorate and its citizens.

Some of them still stand up

to defend their trampled rights
for being cynically humiliated

by political cadres,

pimped by employers,
subservient to big business.

To those who resist Huxley's
Brave New World, of 60 years ago,

they retort with batons,
tear gas, and water cannons.

The riot police's caresses.

Lazy, resigned, I have no hope
in the outcome of the clashes.

I support the demonstrators
from my bed,

rejoicing at the black bloc's chaos.

I dream of burned banks,
stoned police stations,

a new disorder.

On social media, a few days later,

I see a quote by Hermann Hesse

posted by an unknown friend:

"I'm thirsty for violent sensations,
a fury against

this neutral, flat,
regulated, sterilized existence,

an urge to ransack something:

a department store
or a cathedral or myself,

commit a folly, tear the wigs
off a few respected idols,

help schoolchildren in revolt
to go on a liner,

wring the neck
of bourgeois representatives.

That's what I hate, curse and abominate
from the depths of my heart:

this bliss, health, comfort,

this neat optimism,

this fat, prosperous breeding
of mediocre folk."

Back to the countryside.

The shelves are emptying
slowly, too slowly.

The mass is barely decreasing.

Between films, I go around in circles.

I'm working on music my Lisbon friends
asked me to prepare for the opening

of an exhibition on them.

This invitation to Portugal
would be very timely

if the prospect of a trip
wasn't enough to make me anxious.

I have toothache coming on.

It gets worse every day.
Somatization?

Hypochondria?

I'm wary of my body and mind's
reactions to anxiety.

I only feel a slight pain,
but I feel it about to erupt.

I down painkillers
in the hope of curbing the pain.

The journey is like an adventure:

to reach the small coastal town,

I go by car and train,
spend a night in Strasbourg,

then a dawn bus without having slept
to a German airport

and fly to Porto.

Another 30 minutes on the subway
before finally meeting my friends,

completely absorbed
by the last problems before the opening.

There was a bomb attack in Turkey
before I left and during my stay, Iraq

on July 3, then Syria, on July 5,
count their dead.

I have no wish to laze in the sun or
to walk in the alleys I know by heart.

I read in my hotel room for hours
till it's time to play music.

I've made a selection that refers
to my friends' cinematographic universe.

I insert the waltz
composed by David Mansfield for

"Heaven's Gate". The director's world
is far from that of my friends

who respect him
without idolizing him,

but it seems to me
this waltz belongs here

in the melancholy
of the windy Portuguese twilight.

The celebration is ending.

I'm glad I did it, despite
my apprehension and lack of practice.

I'm pleased to see

some friends.
I'm introduced to unknown faces.

I have a last drink.

I turn my phone back on.

I suddenly discover,
as I scroll through the news,

that Michael Cimino is dead.

It's disastrous irony.

A cruel twist of fate.

The coincidence disturbs me.

The next day, we drive back to Lisbon.

I like spending time with my friends,

but I can't enjoy this holiday.

My teeth hurt,
I absorb lots of medicine,

I only leave my room
so as not to be

unpleasant to my hosts.

Death strikes where it wants
this summer which is off to a bad start.

Abbas Kiarostami dies next.

I remember his film,
"The Passenger",

one evening
when we braved the soccer fans

pouring into the subway,
streets and squares.

This effervescent crowd seems much less
repugnant than the one which bawled,

in the stink
of warm beer and testosterone,

2 weeks earlier
under Parisian skies.

We discover Jean Renoir's "Night at the
Crossroads" at the Lisbon Cinematheque

and I fall asleep that night,
dreaming of turtles and opiates.

On the way back, I impose
an adult behavior on myself:

I contact a dentist.
He disinfects, treats,

descales, drills, takes impressions,
crowns, and plenty more besides.

To avoid joining
the cohort of the toothless,

I plan weekly appointments
until the move

and sacrifice the nest egg
which was to facilitate my departure

to the bill which awaits me.

On July 14, the village flea market
is invariably held.

With my sleep pattern,
I'm not in bed

when the first stands are put up
before daybreak.

The bar,
which will work non-stop

till late at night,
serves the first drinkers.

I lie down, protected from the noise
by my closed windows and shutters.

I emerge a few hours later,
dragged from sleep

by a mute, undulating sound,

as if clouds of insects
were buzzing in my skull.

When I open the windows,

a human tide unfurls at my feet,
a dissonant symphony

produced by hundreds of performers
who stroll from one stand to another.

A torrent roaring with chatter,
interjections, and loud cries.

Purses click on all sides.

The objects, in frozen expectation

of a second life,
are weighed and negotiated.

They hunt for a bargain
buried in the dirt and dust:

a magic trinket,
a sacred rosary,

a Renaissance pushchair, an unknown
masterpiece under a rustic crust.

The seasoned salesmen pitch,
invent a new mythology

for each bauble to people
whose glance happens to linger

on a wax doll with no eyes
or a wobbly stool.

An occasional slap is given to a kid,
the "You deserved that"

that accompanies it,
and the subsequent screams.

Or a nauseous accordion
that suddenly intensifies

and reaches my ears.

If that's the people
I've lived with for months,

why end my solitude?

I close the shutters, plunging

the living room
into reassuring darkness.

But this improvised safeguard
barely mutes the outside roar.

I sit at the computer,

put headphones on,
turn the volume up,

roll a joint,
abandon myself to the music.

I listen to new music
on my virtual strolls, watch clips,

and find a track,
already 3 years old,

that perfectly coincides with my mood.

A vexed, annoyed mood
that has always gripped me on holidays.

Even more oppressive are the national
holidays when people strut and parade.

The days of pride
and historical contentment.

The song is "La France des Epiciers"
by Gontard.

It goes: "See, Grandpa?

They give us the same toys

Religion, selfishness, glory

Fine crimes in prime time
Trains that derail

And all this fetishism over the flag

How can you worship a piece of cloth?"

I listen to it 2, 3, 4 times.

To overcome my first emotion
and experience the text.

There is an unexpected similarity
between the lyrics and my day.

I decide to pin it
to my Facebook wall.

A few hours later,
I make a chickpea salad

and go down
to look for my mom and her best friend

and invite them to taste it.

That night, someone knocks
at my door. It's a friend

I know from way back.
We haven't been in touch for years.

Smiling and a bit drunk,

he's here to make up
for lost time, he says,

before I leave for good.

We drink a lot of beer and brandy.

I exchange a few words,
but mainly let him talk.

He loves to hear himself speak.

Intoxication
disposes me to listen.

He leaves, staggering,
shortly before daybreak.

A few moments earlier,
I looked at my computer

and discovered the Nice terror attack.

I don't think I'm likely to know anyone
who attended Bastille Day celebrations,

much less on the Riviera.

And I lay down,
knocked out, in my cups.

I wake up, stiff all over.

I refuse to see the images
served up on the news sites.

In a flash, I visualize
the dubious cash-in,

the absurd associations,

the manipulation of emotions,
the pain,

the bodies,
the hemoglobin, the tears,

the anger they'll dish up
in the days to come.

The portraits on which
the French flag will be juxtaposed.

The mourning that unites a torn country.
All bloody. All together.

The victims' biographies
accompanied by a smiling portrait,

kindness, innocence
shot down in mid-air.

Manufacturing martyrs.

It's her, it's him, it's you, it's me.

The shameless exploitation
of the affliction

to constrain ever more,

to curtail individual liberties.
The shift of responsibility,

the barometer of growing fear,

how many points it can earn in polls,

the gravediggers' opportunism,

the official thinkers' analysis,
always quick to be in the media,

horror pornography,
reason tweeting,

the trolls' poison,
hunger for scapegoats,

the scent of vengeance,
the underlying racism,

justifying massive resources,

conditioning on order and defense,

incompetent reasoning.

Fear, a great hunter
and unsurpassed unifier.

For whom are the snakes
that hiss on your heads?

I close my eyes,
plug my ears, press my temples.

But I still hear

more and more clearly
the sound of boots returning.

Am I the only one to hear it?

What effects will our inconsistencies
have on the next elections?

Will great monsters
follow the little monsters

that have succeeded one another
for decades?

In this mess,
even more than usual,

I don't know how to deal with
the inconsistency in my derisory life.

My procrastinations, anxieties, doubts,
the aesthetic entrenchments,

the ridiculous habits
behind which I erect an illusory wall

against the violence of the world:
all this seems so selfish, so vain.

July continues,

relentlessly unrolling a web
of extreme abominations and aberrations.

The Turkish purges, Adama Traoré,
the Labor Law forced through,

the evacuation of asylum seekers,

and in less than a week,

Munich, Kabul,
and St Etienne du Rouvray.

The sun shines,
victims rain down,

bombs explode,
they exploit the confusion,

stupefaction,
and the torpor of vacation

to impose their new liberal order,
trample on the workers,

clean the streets
of the unsightly camps.

Clean up. Demonstrate strength.

Reassure. Clear up. Edicts and decrees.
Handcuffs and batons.

Tasers and grenade launchers.
Sickening.

The rise of the familiar feelings
of bad conscience and guilt

of being an impotent spectator
of this flood,

an anonymous larva protected by

my white skin.

"I See a Darkness",
Bonnie Prince Billy's lament, haunts me.

It pierces me, caresses me,

consoles me, saddens me.

It goes away,
I get closer, run from it,

it runs back,
turns into a handkerchief, a shroud,

an amulet, a cloud, a storm,
a companion in misfortune.

I cling to the concrete,

to the endless emptying
of the apartment.

Keep busy, work,
you'll think less.

It's no mean feat!

If only I accepted diversion,
but I can't.

My libido triumphs
as sleeping beauty, snoring paralytic.

My desires are cryogenized.

So, when I'm done for the day
unhanging, packing,

taking down shelves,
I return to my fake celluloid brothers,

films.
A repetition of identical days,

the only variant of which
is the cinephile menu.

Identical nights

where the death-blow is brought
by cannabis and hops.

Monday is the same as Tuesday.
Thursday is a photocopy of Wednesday.

Corridors of days and weeks
that form

a labyrinth of dark mirrors.

I almost forget,
behind the shutters,

that it is summer.

Faithful friends remind me.

Several come
from Nantes, Strasbourg, Paris

to make a last tour in the woods,
to spend some time out of the city.

Drunken discussions,
debates, bullshit.

We warm hearts and minds,
refresh throats,

share our concerns,

dissect our terrors, pretend to
reassure ourselves and forget a while.

To each their singularities.

Some try transvestism,
some are obsessed

with protection from Lyme disease,

some strive to write a western,

some Lacan, Hannah Arendt

or San Antonio,

firefighter or arsonist,

some prescribe or swallow,

bourgeois or bohemian.

All losers!

On our walks, we talk about
the erosion of our certainties,

regret the loss of the values
we were formed by.

Out of the race,
not in the rat race.

We examine the world
and find some pride in being anomalies,

however atomized and derisory.

On a path, deer freeze for a moment
before disappearing as quickly

as they came, or butterflies drinking
from thistles in the light of sunset

remind us of the possibility
of uncorrupted beauty.

Just saved by a postcard cliché,
by an impromptu prettiness,

consensual, unanimous,
and devoid of cynicism.

For the first time
since I came here,

I sometimes get lost
on these walks with friends,

lose my inner compass, forget the path
as soon as I've walked it,

misinterpret and confuse
the landmarks,

climb instead of descend,
think north and walk south.

I lose my way
in the greenery of the Vosges.

But you always find,
almost with regret,

the right road, the overflowing fridge,
the comfort of second-hand sofas.

The lair where you collapse,
too tired to think.

You fall silent and digest lazily.

Night has deigned to fall.
The bells ring and ring.

Tomorrow, the friends will leave,
taking furniture or pottery

or a stack of records or books.

Thanks for helping me clear out.
I'm not done yet.

And I always ask the same question:

Why don't we watch a movie?

2 more months to go.
I stamp my feet inside myself.

The days spent alone
stretch and slide in slow motion.

I've ended this chapter of my life
and want to move on to the next one.

Pick the new windmills
I'll have to fight.

But the heart of August
only beats weakly.

Vacation palpitations that taunt

my terrible impatience to leave
this daily life steeped in repetition

and self-sufficient conditioning.

Friends likely to support me benefit
here and there from the August break.

The world is motionless,
petrified in the seasonal heat.

Neutral. Calendar suspension.

My mother and stepfather
have gone for 10 days.

I flutter in my jar alone,

like an insect held on its back
by its heavy shell

and whose legs
desperately whip the air.

The spare time
leaves me free to go over

each of the obstacles
at will and in detail,

to foresee obsessively
every possible problem.

It amplifies annoyances, hammers home
doubts, mocks my vulnerability.

The anxiety attacks I could drive away
are coming back.

Without warning,
it just happens.

I eat, watch a film or sort records.
Suddenly, like a dam

yielding under too much pressure,

a flood of
confused, contradictory thoughts,

wells up,
mercilessly innervating all my brain.

Reflexive arrows attack my reason.

I'm colonized by waves of fear,
on a roller coaster,

teleported
in the corridor of Alphaville.

At every door,
emptiness sucks me in.

Traveling shot
on my besieged conscience

that exhorts clemency in vain
and gives up.

Ideas become confused and blurred,
thickened and obscured.

Unrelated images clash.

My heart pounds, but I'm alone.

It's a synapse strike,
a tsunami on my neurons.

My breathing races.
The air is running out.

They try to asphyxiate me
up in the maelstrom.

My pulse pounds madly.

I want to scream,
no sound comes out.

My throat is knotted, my diaphragm
in spasm, my temples wet,

sweat irritates my forehead,
glue forms under my arms.

Where are my chemical crutches?
Quick,

the green and blue tube.
The pill under my tongue.

I let the bland, floury savior melt,
lean out the window,

I catch air, trying to regulate
my breathing. It's too soon.

My head is still racing anarchically.
I try to speed up

the effects, exhaust my body,
the internal trepidation.

I run through all the rooms, put my head
under water, retrace my steps,

spin, sit down, get up,
lie down, get up again.

True to form, though always late,
the remission appears in the distance.

In successive waves, with increasing
abrasive power, as they approach.

The chaos dissipates,
the hubbub fades,

the crazy pulsations slow down.

Soothing waves spread,
slowly neutralizing

and overcoming the enemy.

It's a temporary armistice,
a fragile neuronal peace.

But it doesn't last long, these episodes
multiply, destabilizing and random.

Though I overcome them, their frequency
and intensity frighten me.

I feel diminished by the use
of medication, humiliated not to be able

to restore
a rational course by willpower.

Another defeat I must accept.

The sum of my failures,
I realize,

makes me
an unstable, unfinished adult,

as much as, if not more than the few
illusory personal successes I clung to.

Sometimes unexpected consolation
comes from nature.

A singular light
that saturates the exterior colors,

covering the foliage
frozen in the sun.

Like an urgent call to roam.

Some days,
when despite my turbulent impatience,

my mind instinctively agrees
with the countryside I gaze upon.

I go out and take a path
whose every rock I know

and I rediscover the scenery
magnified by fresh shadows:

a backlit moribund oak, the river,
usually grey and insignificant,

shining with adamantine reflections.

The landscape which I was sure I'd
exhausted all the chromatic variations

contradicts my disillusioned character.

The eye opens, palpitates, seeks,

finds, the spirit is released, flattens,
the residual mists

of anguish disperse,

the horizon,
in this accidental epiphany, appears.

The forest, those days,
is vibrant, contagious promises.

The future, when you escape
from the enchanting present,

exists as inexhaustible possibilities.

It'd take almost nothing
for me to be permeable to happiness,

disposed to serenity,
invited to the voyage.

It passes, it's over.

The escape is escaping,
the charm is broken.

The bells of apprehension
and discouragement toll

as soon as I'm indoors.

The boy with whom
I lived here for 5 years

contacts me
after a series of unanswered emails.

He says he can now take the cat

which belonged to him.

This means I don't have to find it
a new home in a hurry.

I invite him to recover

the rest of his things,
which he'd only taken a tiny part of

when we broke up.

I go through the apartment
and set aside anything that was his

or he might have been keen on.

I expect him
to come with his mother,

but he introduces me to his new friend.

The young redhead wears a hat
and uses the "vous" to me,

which gets on my nerves.

He must know
we used the "vous" form.

Luckily, their visit is quick.
We exchange banalities.

The car is loaded,
the cat put in its travel cage.

I must admit I don't feel much,

apart from relief at being rid
of lots of bags and boxes.

When saying goodbye,
my former lover,

I'm about to kiss, asks me

to hug him for a moment.
I do so,

uneasily.

This clumsy embrace momentarily
revives the languor we felt at the end.

It's fueled by the recognition
of the journey we made together

and by the shared conviction of having
made the right choice in splitting up.

I walk him back to the car,
thinking I'll never see him again.

All I feel is superficial sadness

at the failure of the relationship,
not the separation.

That page is turned for good.

For a few days, I miss the cat

for its warmth,
but it makes the departure

for Paris more concrete.
A level passed.

A week later,
I hardly think about it.

Like every year,
the bland chestnut trees

in front of the house
turn yellow first

and lose their leaves in late August,
announcing the return to school.

The villagers end their vacations,
spent in places

where their habits aren't questioned
and they don't feel foreign.

They pick
the Black Forest or Austria,

the convenience of the language,

places where they think the same
and above all,

where they eat the same:
copiously and without fusss.

The scenery barely changes,

they shift their habits.
They look for what most resembles

their familiar environment.
They mustn't be confused

or surprised.
They mustn't be inconvenienced

by difference or have to adapt.

This certainty,

among many here,
that nothing beats Alsace.

Blind passion. Irrational love
of the land, of tradition.

Pride in their origins,
dialectal, historical singularity.

Stupidity.

While this paunchy procession crawled
down Bavarian or Tyrolean paths, waiting

for cocktail hour,
the US army bombed Libya,

a Turkish teen set off a bomb
in a church, massacring over 50 people,

the earth shook and killed
in central Italy,

the Calais "jungle" is overflowing,

a teacher set fire to himself
in a school in Normandy.

All's well, all's very well.

My depression is quenched
by the torrents

of atrocities that pour out,
day after day.

Who could reason with it?

Who could calm me,
dare to recommend

detachment,
counter despondency, despair, disgust,

stifle my screams of impotence,
the guilt of inaction,

being a distant witness
who doesn't act,

but merely retreats
into passive silence?

The films, of course:
outlet, escape, recovery.

Film is analgesic, derivative,
expiatory, reconciling.

Films as bandages, respite, hospices,
clinics, brothels, charity, retirement.

Films as miracles,
oases, semaphores.

Films as reflections, observations,
slaps, electric shocks, driving belts,

braces, armor, races against time,

madness, oblivion.
Knick-nack.

Paddy whack. Tick tock.

Only 3 weeks before I go.

A countdown in my head and my schedule.
My rhythm is finally

disrupted.
In Paris, my pals are back.

A friend lends me her truck,
2 others will drive it here.

I decide to continue
the online sales till Sept 15.

The next day, a man will come
for the rest of the stock in the attic.

10,000 records for him,
one less worry for me.

With my mother, stepfather, and a guy
I hired, the process speeds up.

The furniture and trinkets
I'm not keeping go to the dump,

the clothes are sorted,
the shelves are emptied,

unscrewed, the walls stripped.

This dismantling, this return to
the place's original nudity pleases me.

The departure is no longer a fantasy,
the certainty of being soon elsewhere

and the implicit possibilities
stimulate me.

I'm not just observing this adventure.
I'm experiencing it, feeling

I'm becoming lighter
with each object that goes.

I pack, with the foretaste

of the satisfaction I'll feel

when I unpack the same objects
500 kms from here.

When I walk in a room,

my steps echo. This echo,

released by the disappearance
of the furniture;

this echo,
more distinct every day,

becomes strangely familiar,
an invisible, fortifying partner.

An old friend sends a photo of me,

taken over 20 years ago
in his stairwell in Paris.

I vaguely recognize this young man,

with full cheeks
and a broad smile,

still a little pink,
affable and carefree.

I remember
his certainties and satisfaction

at leaving the grey military province
he came from,

his greed for encounters,
discoveries, and pleasures.

Dark but shiny eyes that betray
a fake confidence and a hint of malice.

I have a strange feeling
about this old photo.

No nostalgia but rather surprise.

I'd forgotten myself a bit, I have no
photos of the last 30 years. I'd hidden

the memory of a thirst for life,
now dissipated.

3 days later, this friend has
a heart attack while cutting vegetables

in his kitchen. I think

it's a bad joke. But no.

Luckily, he's saved in time.

I lived for a long time
free from mourning anyone close.

With the passage of time,

advancing age,
and my father's death,

I now feel
that death and sickness now prowl,

forcing me
to become familiar with them,

to admit the vulnerability
of others and myself.

Leaving. Seeing others leave.

Telling myself that adulthood is also
learning to deal with the inevitable.

A UN publication reveals
that 2016 is already the deadliest year

for refugees
embarking on the Mediterranean.

Should this also be accepted
as inevitable?

Know and do nothing. Look down,

grieve, despair, feel the shame
my peers inspire, and still do nothing.

Accept indifference.

Sad experience of humanity that is

only human in name.
Resignation gives off

the disgusting whiff of infamy.

I listen again to Aragon's
"Is This How Men Live?" performed by

Catherine Sauvage:

"The sky was grey with clouds
Wild geese cried death as they passed

Over the houses on the quay

I saw them through the window
Their sad song entered my being"

It's time for the last times,
far more exciting than the first:

last washday, last boxes, last time
seeing my few local friends,

last walk in the forest,
last family dinners,

last films seen here,

last nights, last identical days.

The apprehension of leaving
my addictive loneliness has gone.

The need to move forward
has taken over.

Something inside me
still wants to live.

Adventitious energy, something maybe
stronger than despair and darkness.

The fight isn't won,
but I'm pursuing it.

My mother, who patiently supported me

and encouraged me to leave,
tries to hide the pain

she feels to see me leave.

The memory of my improbable move
to the area 7 years before has faded.

By dint of invisibility
and entrenchment,

I blended into the landscape.
You could almost have

forgotten I was an outsider
searching for calm,

with only an emotional attachment
to this dense forest I loved to roam.

She'd become quietly accustomed
to my proximity, to the possibility

of sharing her anger, her exasperation
at such hopeless conservatism,

the swaggering stupidity
that often surrounds her here.

I feel a twinge of sorrow
at letting her

engage in resistance
we both know is bound to fail.

This sadness is offset
by my friends' arrival

from far away,
to help with the move,

load the truck, and drive it to Paris.

10 of us work for a whole day

in a joyful atmosphere,
transforming the expected ordeal

into a fun, amusing time.

This last Sunday ends
with a meal full of excitement

and sweet melancholy.

The conversations are warm,

the jokes fly,

everyone is cheerful,
reassuring, kind, benevolent.

I'll take with me
this last image of the village,

lifelong friends
without whose support

and loyalty
I could have given up for good,

given up any future perspective,
and get bogged down.

On the morning of Monday Oct 3,
the sky

is grey but not threatening,
the light is dull.

I hug and thank
my mother and stepfather,

I swallow a few tears
and sit by my friends who'll be driving.

The engine starts, hands wave
at the door and in the rear-view mirror.

We take a small road

under trees whose foliage
isn't completely yellow yet.

My mother, the sandstone rocks,
the village gradually move away,

become silhouettes,
dark, undefined nodules,

before disappearing completely.

I don't really know
what lies in store for me.

But I'm leaving.

Subtitles: J. Miller, a.s.i.f.