Rose, c'est Paris (2010) - full transcript
Rose, this is Paris
Big mystical serials
in thirty-six tableaux
and more
From Bettina Rheims
and by Serge Bramly
Music by Martin Meissonnier
This is not a film.
"The work must contain nothing of reality,
no observation of the world or of minds.
nothing but wholly
imaginary combinations."
Raymond Roussel
Gone Missing
Oh my God...
I got back from my trip with Xavier.
When I entered the apartment
the place was in chaos
and my sister wasn't there.
I thought she was dead.
I had a hallucination.
MISSING
Sizeable reward for any
information leading to
Rose Breton. alias Rose Mutt. alias
Brigitte Remy. alias Ram Bayglers. etc.
Light hair, eyes likewise. Known also
under the name of Marcelle Souveste.
We are two and we are one.
I don't know...
She is my soul, she is
my mirror, she is...
I can't live without her.
I can't be without her...
My sister, Rose.
Room No. 3
Shattered by Rose's disappearance,
her twin sister moved into
a family boarding house near the Jardin
du Luxembourg, under a false name.
In room No. 3 a famous clairvoyant
lived as a recluse.
There was also a Hindu dancer
- supposedly a princess -
and a philatelist hungry for novelty.
When Rose's spirit was invoked,
the table often went wild.
It spinned around chaotically,
giving some participants
terrible migraines.
Somebody, it seemed,
was not telling the whole truth.
Rose had had a husband,
and a daughter,
whom she had left without explanation,
and now she too had to sever all links,
If she was to find her sister again.
Behind the Facade of Ordinary Days
The days went by,
seemingly unchanged.
She was working at the restaurant,
passing herself off as her twin sister.
I'm going to have
six hands on my head...
Better six hands from L'Ami Louis
than a single hand elsewhere...
What does that mean?
In the evening she tried to get
the clairvoyant to help her.
And every Saturday she went to
a beauty salon where Rose used to go,
hoping to find a clue, an idea,
something or someone
to point her in the right direction.
I've stopped sleeping.
I am waiting.
Observing, searching.
The Ten of Cups, the Fool, the Tower...
The cards said nothing about Rose.
They avoided the subject as if
determined to spare her twin sister,
as if they knew a secret
with such implications
that they feared
it would weigh her down,
as if they thought she was
unable to bear this burden.
The Insidious Carousel of Memories
When you told Dr. Alaia your nightmares
he turned them into dreams.
Judging by the diary she left behind,
Rose went to see him twice a week,
on Monday and Thursday.
She felt like a prisoner
of her memory's fixed images.
Her imagination, she complained,
always brought back
the same old memories:
The music lesson!
The death of the bird!
The game of disguises and false features
imposed by her fantasies
sometimes drove her
to absurd impersonations.
At the fourth stroke it will be 10:23.
At the fourth stroke it will be 10:24.
The Abduction Theory
It was said that young women
sometimes disappeared in fitting rooms.
A man joins them in the cubicle,
and then... Pfff!
In such cases, the kidnappers
do not demand a ransom,
they drug their victim and
sell her to the highest bidder.
Sometimes her master locks
the poor girl up in a golden cage
and shows he off like a pet panther.
Well, it's been a while now...
Yes, yes, quite...
We've already spent
the whole day together...
Fascinated by France
and by all this opulence...
Uncivilised creatures that you are!
All Europe came to
the brothels of Paris.
Sometimes she is
subjected to vile practices
and the woman gradually loses
even the taste for her past life.
Did Rose still remember
that she had a twin sister?
The Dissolution Theory
A young woman matching
the description of Rose
had been spotted on the boulevards.
Spread the word: a rich reward
for whoever gives her address.
Perhaps Rose had locked
herself into a dissolute life
of her own free will and
no longer wished to leave it.
The possibility could not
be lightly dismissed.
Rose, as if I were you,
melted together in one single desire.
Welcome to the cabaret of the last day!
For a while, she was
a dancer in a cabaret.
When she got up on stage,
and the spotlights lit up
and the music started,
she felt she was nearing her goal.
And there you go!
She learnt the tricks of the trade
from the other girls:
how to prance on a chair,
how to fake an orgasm
with a flick of the hair.
The Conspiracy Theory
The smoke of revolution had attracted
Rose ever since she was little.
She dreamed of blowing up
the world and making it new.
Terrorists could easily
have recruited her.
Like all idealists,
she was credulous.
Some fugitives said they were
guided by an apparition
when they felt lost.
People murmured
that this was the ghost of the
court clerk, a compassionate spirit
who haunted the maze of archives.
Maybe she had fallen
in love with the right boy?
Maybe she was addicted
to the higher emotions
induced by the dangers of clandestinely?
Maybe...
The Thwarted-Love Theory
Some days,
when the sky was stormy
and the streets cold and damp,
it seemed to her that Rose had been
dragged into a spiral of false feelings
that kept her from
the light of true life.
Rose! Where are you, Rose?
Come to me, Rose!
It's you I'm waiting for, Rose!
I am an image again.
She was fed with chimera,
deceitful hopes stifled her will,
contradictory desires
muddied her thoughts.
Often, when a feeling persists,
it turns bitter, like venom.
You lose sight of your interests,
forget your friends,
reject your family.
There were so many possibilities.
How could one tell?
Who to believe?
What track to follow?
Rose is death, she said to herself.
Rose is death.
The Flower Girl Gang Theory
Reserved for books out of use.
The gang grew roses in the basements
of the abandoned great library.
Just a few drops of blood
could poison the flowers,
making their petals go black.
When the smell of those roses
spread through the streets
it wrought havoc.
Innocent children, unaware
no doubt that their wares were harmful,
hawked their toxic flowers
in all the bars and cafes.
The Bride Theory
Their patents, she recalled,
had brought them up with the idea
of a perfect wedding: in white,
with chiming bells and eternal oaths.
Rose told anyone who would listen
that she understood her obligations
and would make it a point
of honour to obey them.
Timid power, essence of love,
constant sparks:
the virgin reaches
the limit of her desire.
And, at the same time, she dreams
of something else that she cannot name.
In fact, Rose was spoilt for choice.
The number of would-be lovers
grew in proportion to her hesitation.
There were three of them,
then six, then nine.
The situation was especially embarrassing
for Rose didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings.
And so she thought of marriage
as a high wire up above the void,
or an infernal machine running riot
among the unknowing crowd
one festive night.
The Oracle
Signs were multiplying -
obvious, insistent, almost limpid.
Was the quest reaching its end?
R.O.S.E.
Every night the oracle
under its glass dome
doggedly repeated
the four letters of the mystery,
like a message of deliverance.
Madame Jacquot was an authority.
Her bench in the Parisian Metro
was like her throne.
She knew the city inside out.
I wonder if I'll recognise her...
It's her!
She listened to your story and,
if she judged you worthy,
she gave you a little scrap of paper
with an address on it.
Here, she said, this is where
you'll get your sister back.
I feel like kissing...
R.O.S.E.
Thursday, 12 March 2009.
At the 4th stroke it will be 10:23.
This time she felt
someone was waiting for her.
This is a strange feeling
after such a long,
solitary journey in the dark.
She still had to beg,
but she knew now that she was
going to see, just as she was seen.
A light was shining.
She couldn't recognise herself.
"This is not me", she said.
But Rose was smiling at her,
and she thought:
"This is still me."
In searching and finding
herself in this way,
she felt she had understood something
that went far beyond
the aspirations of love.
The Mourning of Illusions
A breach was opening in the wall,
and on the ruins of a dying world
a desire, an ambition,
an appetite she thought lost
was coming back to life.
Like Orpheus she must leave the
world of shades without looking back.
Eurydice was gone. She had invented,
rocked, fed and sustained her
with her own flesh.
It was time to loosen
the grip of her ghosts.
Then, at last,
the true flower could bloom.
The Reconciliation of Opposing Squares
- Hello, Rose? Are you okay?
- Yes, great, and you?
I'm dying to get out and about!
I'm so happy!
The voice whispering in
her ear had gone quiet,
giving her a respite,
a gap between two questions,
two distractions.
Who is one speaking to,
she now asked herself,
who is one speaking to
when one is talking to oneself?
So sorry!
She no longer saw the crime,
no longer felt the guilt.
Her remorse
had vanished, replaced, so to speak,
by a hazy shadow of regret.
Can you lend me some money, please?
Here, I'll lend you 600.
300...
At last she could join the game,
alongside the others, and play
with them, as if nothing had happened,
at all those games from which
she had so long felt excluded,
and that she wanted so badly to play.
Me, bet again?
600.
I'll raise you.
150! Raise!
5000! Quick, go on!
One million! One million!
This is no fun!
The women always win!