Wall Engravings (1968) - full transcript
WALL ENGRAVINGS
Pan Coup?: cutaway surface
which replaces the angle
where two sections of wall meet.
no, jean, there are no black flowers.
She is a musician.
Through the window
overlooking the landing,
I saw her this morning, she was
singing. An aria, I think.
Standing in her kitchen.
Who would have thought it?
There was nothing to suggest
her madness.
No sign.
She is a hard woman, authoritarian.
Have you heard her voice?
She has always been hard.
With the servants,
when she still had some of them.
I am 5 minutes early.
And with her husband as well,
I knew him very well
and he was the best of men,
so nice, you have no idea.
A photographer. One of the first
who took photos of Paris.
An artist too. He used to paint.
She had relegated the poor man
to the back room.
The one you live in.
When I arrived,
everything was in ruins.
Without what I give her,
she could hardly live.
She is educated.
He was her second husband.
She had had a blow in her life.
She has never really recovered.
An earthquake in Japan, in 1928.
She came back alone
with her little 2 year old girl.
Her husband died there.
- Where is her daughter?
- In Mexico.
She left, for Mexico.
15 years ago.
She hardly writes.
And never takes care of her mother.
Children are so ungrateful.
It is her fault,
she is impossible to live with,
with everyone, impossible.
Watch out, you'll get dirty.
I haven't had time to wash.
We stop at 5:00 now.
- I came on Thursday.
- I couldn't.
On Wednesday too.
I know, I found the letter.
I couldn't.
We've met twice in three weeks.
Jeanne, it's not like before.
I've had no schooling.
You're bored with me.
I love you.
What can I say that interests you?
Why do you love me?
Jeanne, I don't know anymore.
- I love you.
- Don't worry.
I love being with you
even when you stay silent so long.
I've lost confidence in myself.
Or in you.
Jeanne, it starts again,
I want to leave.
Yes, all the time, do this,
that, you mustn't do.
I'm ashamed to know
so much less than you.
And because of this,
we'll never get on.
I have to tell you
when I think I'm right,
and you're wrong.
Precisely, I should be the one
who is right
and you should think I'm right.
But it's not that.
It's me, Jeanne.
It starts again...
Help me.
I want to help you.
Anything,
to stay with you, whatever you want.
I should be reborn elsewhere,
another childhood, other parents.
No prison at 15.
I still can't forget that.
I know when I'm wrong,
but I can't help myself.
When I want to be alone
while I should want to be with you.
Jeanne, I don't deserve you.
One can want to be alone.
Do whatever you want,
we aren't statues.
The key is to understand
and start again.
It's stupid.
What would you like?
I want to go elsewhere. Elsewhere.
To the moon.
I'd like to be good, pure, happy,
free, sweet,
nice and easy.
But I can't. The world
is hard and closed around me,
us.
And those who refuse to see it
as it is, are liars.
Dough corrupts everything.
You want to leave?
Will you forget our story?
She came earlier today.
Usually she comes at 5. Usually.
How do we know
that we don't love anymore?
How do you know?
Jeanne.
Jean.
Yes.
Three months later, Jean left Jeanne
letting her believe
he was fleeing far away.
Jeanne,
I prefer to give up everything than
to accept what society offers me.
Perhaps I won't send these letters,
I prefer to disappear
from your life forever.
Whatever happens,
know that I loved you fully.
For a few days I've been living
with a group of beatniks.
They beg.
I don't like their life.
Beatnik means defeated.
I'm not defeated.
I won't beg.
I've never been a delinquent child,
or a teddy boy, I'm not a beatnik.
No, I can't rebuild the world.
There might be possible happiness
on this planet,
I can't see it.
But it's probably me.
My adventure must be solitary.
I haven't eaten anything
for three days.
I'm only suffering from cold.
Funny summer.
I have a fever.
I'd like a bed.
Goodbye Jeanne.
He died shortly afterwards
in totally obscure circumstances.
However his death
was declared natural.
His body was discovered in the garden
of a suburban house in Lyon.
A worker found him there
one morning.
Jean showed no signs of injury
or blow
and his face looked so gentle.
His arms were tied around his neck
and his opened eyes seemed
to look up at the sky.
Jeanne never heard of his death.
The world is so big.
To look for him, but where?
As people do
for others' love stories,
I could tell you
that you'll forget him,
that you were so different, well,
anything.
But I know you too well.
I know that you will
never forget him.
Often, I think of Jean, as a child.
Child.
I'd rather know that he's dead than
to imagine him away from me every day.
And probably unhappy.
Did he mention a country or a city?
Only leaving, always.
And dying.
How should I have loved him?
It wasn't a matter of loving him,
because you couldn't have done it
more or better.
It was a matter of having
him accept the world.
Remember, you told me
that before knowing him
you had never imagined
one could hate the world that much.
The fear of running into him,
someday, somewhere,
when it'll be too late.
Yes, you needed more time.
One cannot explain the world
to anyone.
But for Jean,
with a lot of tenderness, perhaps...
Jeanne avoided every place
that had seen them together and happy.
- Jeanne
- Jean.
The memory of Jean haunted her.
I am a crazy boy.
No, you are not a crazy boy.
You are a crazy girl.
No, I am not a crazy girl.
We must decide to change everything
when we understand
that everything is wrong.
Jean, look, I found it at home.
I'll have plants everywhere.
Jeanne.
Even in her room,
images and words haunted her.
Runaway child said the judge.
True, I naturally got
the desire to leave.
And to die, already.
School didn't interest me
nor the craft they chose for me.
I left.
I stole a scooter.
Motorcycle cops caught us
on the road to Amiens.
My father picked me up at the station.
The shame.
My father.
I left again.
At home we called cops, pigs.
I left the job.
Juvenile offender said the judge.
I like that word, it reminds you
of that bloody freedom.
A fortnight at Fresnes,
being sorted.
Before joining what they call,
rehabilitation centre.
There, blockhead wing.
Blockhead.
A breakout.
We steal what we find
in the instructors' dressing room.
Farmers denounce us.
They find us asleep in a field
at dawn. Bastards.
I'm in a cell, they come to tell me:
Your father is dead.
I'm released.
I quit the job my judge had found me.
I'm hiding in Pigalle.
Days in caf?s, nights often.
On the walls of the cell,
there are many things written.
Welcome to the Hotel Continental.
The lions are caged.
The daggers of revenge.
The paths of hope.
They locked me in one Sunday.
I meet you.
Jeanne, I cry when I think
about the day I met you.
Jeanne, you're so nice.
Jeanne, you're tired of me.
Jeanne, help me.
Jeanne, you taught me everything.
Yet it's him who did it. Listening
to him, I understood the world.
It was difficult to calm him down
since you understood his anger.
What's more, you shared it.
How to explain gentleness,
indulgence,
and that the world is so strong,
so rich.
Perhaps more beautiful than
in our best dreams.
Jeanne especially avoided
the Au Pan Coup? of their love,
where everything collapsed when she
realized that Jean's promise
not to leave her was only a reprieve
and that one day he'd run away
as he had told her
on their first meeting.
I think there is evil in me,
when something's going too well,
I break it, when someone loves me,
I leave.
And if I find a place
where I'm happy,
my only idea is to flee.
So what?
Tormented soul.
The beautiful story.
Do you think this is the way to live?
You look like your mother.
It's a long journey
to St Gervais d'Auvergne.
Fortunately Ginette loves reading.
As she approaches
her native village,
the traveller feels deeper down
an unknown emotion,
at once upset and happy,
Ginette is watching the landscape
that seems familiar to her.
She is now on her way to the farm
where she used to live
before leaving for Paris.
She stops when she sees
a familiar silhouette in the yard
and a cry bursts out from her lips,
Mom.
Mademoiselle,
I often called you without success.
Either you were out and your father
didn't know when you'd be back,
or there was nobody home.
I'm writing for the fourth time about
the rents you still owe me.
Do you want to keep the studio?
I kept my promises and didn't mention
it to your father as you asked me.
I hope you'll keep yours
and won't disappoint my trust.
You'll have your dough, old bag.
Pierre?
Jeanne.
It's alright.
You know the other day
I told you about the room.
Yes.
I've got another letter
from the owner.
4 monthly payments.
It's a big sum.
You're nice.
I'm really embarrassed,
you're the only one I could tell.
My father? No.
Doesn't want to help me.
I avoid speaking of that room
with him.
And you know he never really agreed.
Almost nothing.
I had a layout to do for the cover
of a paperback book, I gave up.
I can't draw a single line.
I don't think so.
I don't think I'll ever paint again.
I don't think so.
Yes.
Something broken, really.
As soon as possible.
I've decided to go tomorrow
to pack my things,
I'll give back the key
to the caretaker
and I'll send what I owe
to the owner.
Yes.
Goodbye Pierre. Thank you.
Anyway I'll see you on Thursday?
Goodbye.
You should do paintings
that represent walls
exactly as they are.
That exists already.
Paintings and photos as well.
Who cares? And it's useless
to write poems too,
they are already on walls.
Tracks.
All in all what matters is not
to discover but to rediscover.
Yes, paint your walls.
If we feel like it,
let's write our names everywhere,
on walls, trees, benches, statues.
Who cares?
Here, someone has already
written my name.
Jean.
Who is that Jean?
Jeanne, we have so little time.
So little time.
Jean broken finger.
You know, I heard them all.
Cut finger. Jean owes five francs
to the caretaker, I owe 50 kg.
And I answered,
I owe nothing to no one.
(The previous subs were French puns
with the name of Jean Doit)
Jeanne, do you know that
in Malaysia there are
plants and flowers that grow in
minutes?
Jeanne, have you noticed,
there are no black flowers.
Jeanne, you already have some mail.
Dear Miss, regarding our contract
to the renting
of my studio,
19 rue Turbeau, Paris XVII,
here is the list
of the objects and furniture
you'll have to return in the same
condition when you leave.
A foldable walnut table,
a small white rectangular table,
two outdoors chairs freshly painted.
A double bed in good condition.
300 books, 35 hardbacks.
A white coloured tureen,
a family painting, a bed lamp,
a refrigerator,
a dozen plates, white porcelain
with blue flowers, 2 chipped.
6 forks, 6 spoons, 6 knives, 12
glasses, a breadboard, a rolling pin.
- Jeanne, there is no way you...
- We'll see.
Jeanne, I went to the cinema.
I'll come back at midnight.
See you later. Love.
Jean.
While you were out, I read them all.
Where do they come from?
From some kind of bazaar on the road
to Manosque, 2 years ago.
Between 2 packs of washing
powder and fruit crates.
It's a beautiful collection.
I had the album for almost nothing,
people there think it's worthless.
Marie Aubert. Marie Spin?le.
These postcards tell
the life of a woman.
At first Marie was 16, she lives in
Taverns in the Var.
Miss Aubert,
Tavernes-pr?s-Barjols, Var.
13.06.07
1907.
Happy birthday.
Madeleine.
Come and have lunch as soon as possible
in Tavernes-les-Bains.
Nice.
Thinking of you,
is thinking of happiness,
it's hoping as in beautiful fables
for sweet joy that intoxicates my
heart and gives it ineffable hours.
Souvenir from Barjols.
Souvenir. Souvenir.
A kiss from Tavernes.
Barjols November 8, 1907.
Station area flooded.
Souvenir from Tavernes.
Each page is a
fragment of Marie's life.
Here it's Marie maybe.
Meanwhile Marie and Louis met
and were in love.
Marie followed Louis to Toulon.
Marie Aubert became Marie Spin?le.
- Here, their son?
- No, little Gabriel, their nephew.
Do you recognize our little imp?
He's just come to say hello.
His dad and his mom
send their best wishes
to cousin Marie.
Little Gabriel has had
whooping cough for a fortnight.
It's tiring him.
Cuddles from us all. Marc. P?.
We should be very gentle
with children. Always.
Give them all possible gentleness.
Then there's the war.
Other floods,
other thoughts, other memories,
kisses.
Louis dies. Time goes by.
The fashion for postcards passes.
Marie gives up her collection.
These ones remained all mixed up
at the end.
1948, the last one.
Marie Spin?le probably died alone
in her house
in silence and flowers,
like in her beautiful album.
That's it. The story of a lifetime.
Our story.
Marie, Louis,
little Gabriel's whooping cough.
All now lost in time.
Is little Gabriel still alive?
And his children?
Out of this world too. Or nearly so.
And those who bathe happily...
Taverns, Place des Jardins.
Three children with caps, one of them
nicely smiling at the camera.
Today, three little old men, perhaps,
reading their newspaper in front
of the tobacconist, God knows where?
From our time on this planet,
there will be nothing left, nothing,
nothing at all.
I'm stupid.
It doesn't matter.
What's important is to live.
Sure, sure. And as well as possible.
Jeanne, everything's falling apart.
On their shoulders, people have
thousands of years of regrets,
remorse, bitterness, hope, despair.
I don't care what will remain
of our time on this planet.
Let's live.
One day, one of those bombs may
blow up, and nobody thinks about it.
Everything will be destroyed,
kisses will be cold,
especially, the only thing
perfectly beautiful, nature.
This is what I think about, what
I'm afraid of, that everything stops,
that something happens
much more serious
than all my little problems,
something stronger than all.
I understood that this
refusal of happiness
was mostly a refusal to live.
But as I loved him,
I hoped to change him.
You changed him for a time,
then his nature was stronger and won.
This is probably when
he decided to flee.
Yet he loved you.
Did you remove his portrait?
I couldn't look at it anymore,
especially in mirrors.
His reflection gave the illusion
that Jean was in the room.
And this portrait reminds me of
both a beautiful and a terrible time.
Michel had invited us
to his house in Provence.
For the first days
Jean was very happy.
From early morning until evening
we went cycling.
Often we'd go to the sea.
We laughed.
Jeanne, if you play a trump,
hearts win.
The 4-leaf clover of clubs
brings luck.
We should repaint all Paris
with these colours.
And us as well.
With all these colours.
With all these colours.
With all these colours.
With all these colours.
Jeanne!
Jeanne!
Come!
Jean wanted to know the names
of all trees, all flowers.
Mimosa blooms in winter, my love.
A species provides the snakewood,
that plant is usually called,
sensitive
because it folds its leaves
at the slightest touch.
Mimosa belongs to the acacia species
its yellow flowers gathered
in small spheres
are sold as mimosa.
Acacia is a false mimosa, my love.
The orange tree is cultivated
for its flowers and fruit.
The cypress is an evergreen conifer,
with a severe beauty.
Soon the dictionary was insufficient,
we bought 7 small atlases.
On the back cover:
pocket scientific background.
Wildflowers 1, Wildflowers 2
Garden Flowers, Forest Flowers,
Alpine Flowers,
Medicinal Plants, Marsh Flowers.
It'd take years to know everything,
my love.
To which category belongs
daffodil and periwinkle,
bellflower, wood sedge,
touch-me-not balsam,
forest mint?
Bastard balm, forest cow-wheat,
forget-me-not, bent silene,
wood violet...
Look at this picture.
Laugh, Jean, laugh,
laugh, Jean, laugh!
And then suddenly
he couldn't stop laughing.
Done.
I pressed the shutter.
He laughed a long, long time.
We laughed a long time.
At each stop, a memory,
Cherries in Cogolin,
a gendarme in Gonfaron,
a small patisserie in Jouques,
two fake beatniks in Manosque,
further, a sunset,
and Jean playing cowboy.
He had changed his face,
even his voice,
he had learned to smile again.
I remember.
Jeanne, Jeanne, come down, it's dawn.
Arthur, my brother Arthur,
dawns are disappointing.
Listen, Jean:
Light breaks where no sun shines;
Where no sea runs,
the waters of the heart
Push in their tides; (...)
Light breaks on secret lots,
On tips of thought
where thoughts smell in the rain...
Above the waste allotments
the dawn halts.
Dylan Thomas,
an English poet who often spoke
of sea and flowers, like you.
I remember.
We talked.
We talked.
Imagine that man
cannot control nature anymore.
Start by thinking about
a deserted garden.
Herbs are growing as high as that,
invading everything.
Paths are disappearing,
roads, tar is breaking,
melting down, land is reappearing.
The Eiffel Tower is slowly rusting,
ivy is running along metal rods.
We are going back into prehistory.
The order they invented is wrong,
it's disorder disguised as order.
Aligned trees, soldiers, schoolyard,
always in line. Get in line.
To fall back into line, to hold
one's rank, to keep one's rank.
Get in line.
Stay in line, goodbye nature.
We talked.
Then his mood changed.
Jean took refuge in silence.
He avoided me,
stayed alone hours at a time,
left when the sun went down
and went swimming at night.
Rain, the holidays end.
Jean, you've fought again.
Come in!
Jeanne, I'm dying.
Keeping on pretending to die...
Stop, Jean, stop!
One morning Michael went down
to the studio
and decided to draw
a portrait of Jean.
All the time he posed,
he remained silent and motionless
in the middle of the room.
Yesterday or the day before,
I don't remember too well,
I showed you two
acid green delivery trucks,
it's the green of leaves in spring.
It's the green of my dress.
How wonderful that the blue of the sky
complements the green of the grass,
trees, everything.
Colour catches my eye.
Colour moves me.
To steal nature and give it back.
I see in purple the colour of shadows.
You don't say anything, Jean?
We're going back to Paris.
I'll take that job,
I'm not made for it,
but who's made for it?
Working is absurd.
There are lots of people who do
something that interests them.
How lucky!
You want to rebuild the world?
One can decide not to live.
What about me, Jean?
We went back to Paris.
Jean worked on a building site.
He hoped manual work
would prevent him from thinking.
A month later he fled.
I would have wanted
to redo his whole life.
To give him the childhood he'd lacked,
or the strength to forget it.
I have little to say.
I know so little about him.
A minute.
I'm going out for a few minutes, Sir.
It was a morning about 4 months ago,
I arrive at 8:45 am to open the shop,
I notice in the doorway,
in the dark, a big package.
I set my foot on it to check it,
the package moves.
That was Jean.
You can't tell those stories.
I can't tell you why I laughed.
Because of him, his funny look,
everything.
I showed him in.
He was hungry.
He washed, and then he spoke.
- What did he say?
- He wanted to go far away.
A great trip to India.
About your daughter Jeanne,
he loved her.
He told beautiful things about her.
I offered to let him to stay as long
as he wanted in a room upstairs,
a kind of junk room.
He stayed there for six days.
Three days without leaving his room.
In the evening,
after the workers' departure,
he went out to buy some milk, bread,
books.
I brought a cold meal three times
and we had dinner together.
I stayed with him until morning.
He liked to listen and talk too.
- What was he talking about?
- What do you want to know?
Tell me about him,
I want to hear about him.
My daughter loves him,
I want to know.
It's madness to try and talk about a man
in a few words.
I can't tell you anything.
He is very good and very sad.
He fled to avoid making
Jeanne unhappy.
Finally, you make a saint of him.
No, he tries to understand.
Probably there is inside him,
I don't know what,
an absence, a lack that makes it
difficult for him to live.
I know that,
these beings are dangerous.
Jeanne's Mother was like that.
She fled too, she broke my life.
I wanted to spare Jeanne that.
But of course nothing can be avoided.
He speaks of her
with great gentleness.
But he fled.
That kind of people don't hesitate.
Why don't we meet the others,
not those who flee, not those
who want to rebuild the world,
no, the others,
those who would help you
to bear it as it is,
those who would surround you
with tenderness,
those who would give you their hand.
It happens sometimes,
Jean may change.
No, it's over, Jean is dead.
I've got his whole story
in this briefcase.
They found his body
a few months ago,
in the garden of a house
in the suburbs of Lyon.
He's buried there.
Oh little Jean. You should have given
yourself the time to understand.
I went to Lyon,
I saw the doctor at the hospital.
He told me.
Jean let fever and hunger
take him away.
I searched, I found
almost all of those who knew him.
You were the last one.
My daughter doesn't know he's dead,
I don't think I'll tell her.
Jeanne is less strong
than she believes.
I'm afraid for her.
I can't do anything.
Jeanne couldn't refrain herself
from going back one last time
to Au Pan Coup?, because that's where
they meet near the end.
Where is he now?
Elsewhere. On another site.
Jeanne, you're not well.
Go home, go to bed, you're burning.
Jeanne dared not say
that Jean was gone.
Jeanne saw signs everywhere,
apparently not connected to her pain
yet which relentlessly
plunged her back into it.
I would like to start over,
find the room again,
Jean, our laughter.
Jean!
The green spot there was
my son's room.
I lived there for 30 years.
Then the City of Paris
decided to destroy it.
We were rehoused. Oh, I'm fine.
It's bigger.
It's the end.
I would have liked to stay
there until the end,
with my memories.
It's nice to listen to me,
people don't have the time.
I'm the neighbourhood's loony,
that's what they say.
It's somewhat true.
Sometimes I lose control.
Deep down, madness
is simply perhaps no longer
belonging entirely to oneself.
Sometimes
confused things wander in my head,
words come out of my mouth,
my arms, my hands make gestures
that I don't understand,
I have a tune in my head.
I love music.
I realize that I sing at home,
or even in the streets,
out loud, as they say.
I remember you,
I saw you 3 or 4 months ago.
You were in the street,
I was in a caf?.
The people in the caf? said
that you were hard, authoritarian.
I love flowers. People.
People, words, a word.
People should never talk
nonsense again, never.
It's mild.
The good days are really short.
It is said, but it's true.
The winter was mild too.
It hardly snowed.
It rained in spring.
In Paris, it often rains in spring.
Yes, it rained.
In 40, in the summer, in Royan,
it rained daily for a whole month.
Can you imagine? Every day.
In the end people were
swimming in the rain. It was fun.
Now there are really
no more seasons anymore.
Winters are mild, rain falls
in summer and fall, in spring.
Some say it's because
of all their atomic things.
These are stories,
there had always been summers
with rain and mild winters.
Do we know? We know nothing.
Rue Henri Barbusse, near the
Jardin du Luxembourg. Rue Barbusse.
Don't shout!
Can't you see it's closed.
- I'm asking if you're for hire?
- I'm asking if you're for hire?
There are some taxis,
there's no shortage.
Will you stand here all day long?
- You could be polite!
- Are customers polite?
I'm asking you, please, Sir,
would you drive me
to 16 rue Barbusse?
I don't want to,
there are other taxis.
There, taxis, move!
But don't touch me!
Acacia,
periwinkle,
cyclamen,
bellflower,
wood sedge,
touch-me-not balsam.
My love.
How can one not love life?
Why?
Pierre who liked Jeanne kept quiet.
He knew that Jeanne suffered less
from Jean's departure
than from the despair to have failed
to give him the love of life.
She understood that after his escape,
inevitably Jean would
encounter death.
Jean, everything is fragile,
can we live by a memory?
Pan Coup?: cutaway surface
which replaces the angle
where two sections of wall meet.
no, jean, there are no black flowers.
She is a musician.
Through the window
overlooking the landing,
I saw her this morning, she was
singing. An aria, I think.
Standing in her kitchen.
Who would have thought it?
There was nothing to suggest
her madness.
No sign.
She is a hard woman, authoritarian.
Have you heard her voice?
She has always been hard.
With the servants,
when she still had some of them.
I am 5 minutes early.
And with her husband as well,
I knew him very well
and he was the best of men,
so nice, you have no idea.
A photographer. One of the first
who took photos of Paris.
An artist too. He used to paint.
She had relegated the poor man
to the back room.
The one you live in.
When I arrived,
everything was in ruins.
Without what I give her,
she could hardly live.
She is educated.
He was her second husband.
She had had a blow in her life.
She has never really recovered.
An earthquake in Japan, in 1928.
She came back alone
with her little 2 year old girl.
Her husband died there.
- Where is her daughter?
- In Mexico.
She left, for Mexico.
15 years ago.
She hardly writes.
And never takes care of her mother.
Children are so ungrateful.
It is her fault,
she is impossible to live with,
with everyone, impossible.
Watch out, you'll get dirty.
I haven't had time to wash.
We stop at 5:00 now.
- I came on Thursday.
- I couldn't.
On Wednesday too.
I know, I found the letter.
I couldn't.
We've met twice in three weeks.
Jeanne, it's not like before.
I've had no schooling.
You're bored with me.
I love you.
What can I say that interests you?
Why do you love me?
Jeanne, I don't know anymore.
- I love you.
- Don't worry.
I love being with you
even when you stay silent so long.
I've lost confidence in myself.
Or in you.
Jeanne, it starts again,
I want to leave.
Yes, all the time, do this,
that, you mustn't do.
I'm ashamed to know
so much less than you.
And because of this,
we'll never get on.
I have to tell you
when I think I'm right,
and you're wrong.
Precisely, I should be the one
who is right
and you should think I'm right.
But it's not that.
It's me, Jeanne.
It starts again...
Help me.
I want to help you.
Anything,
to stay with you, whatever you want.
I should be reborn elsewhere,
another childhood, other parents.
No prison at 15.
I still can't forget that.
I know when I'm wrong,
but I can't help myself.
When I want to be alone
while I should want to be with you.
Jeanne, I don't deserve you.
One can want to be alone.
Do whatever you want,
we aren't statues.
The key is to understand
and start again.
It's stupid.
What would you like?
I want to go elsewhere. Elsewhere.
To the moon.
I'd like to be good, pure, happy,
free, sweet,
nice and easy.
But I can't. The world
is hard and closed around me,
us.
And those who refuse to see it
as it is, are liars.
Dough corrupts everything.
You want to leave?
Will you forget our story?
She came earlier today.
Usually she comes at 5. Usually.
How do we know
that we don't love anymore?
How do you know?
Jeanne.
Jean.
Yes.
Three months later, Jean left Jeanne
letting her believe
he was fleeing far away.
Jeanne,
I prefer to give up everything than
to accept what society offers me.
Perhaps I won't send these letters,
I prefer to disappear
from your life forever.
Whatever happens,
know that I loved you fully.
For a few days I've been living
with a group of beatniks.
They beg.
I don't like their life.
Beatnik means defeated.
I'm not defeated.
I won't beg.
I've never been a delinquent child,
or a teddy boy, I'm not a beatnik.
No, I can't rebuild the world.
There might be possible happiness
on this planet,
I can't see it.
But it's probably me.
My adventure must be solitary.
I haven't eaten anything
for three days.
I'm only suffering from cold.
Funny summer.
I have a fever.
I'd like a bed.
Goodbye Jeanne.
He died shortly afterwards
in totally obscure circumstances.
However his death
was declared natural.
His body was discovered in the garden
of a suburban house in Lyon.
A worker found him there
one morning.
Jean showed no signs of injury
or blow
and his face looked so gentle.
His arms were tied around his neck
and his opened eyes seemed
to look up at the sky.
Jeanne never heard of his death.
The world is so big.
To look for him, but where?
As people do
for others' love stories,
I could tell you
that you'll forget him,
that you were so different, well,
anything.
But I know you too well.
I know that you will
never forget him.
Often, I think of Jean, as a child.
Child.
I'd rather know that he's dead than
to imagine him away from me every day.
And probably unhappy.
Did he mention a country or a city?
Only leaving, always.
And dying.
How should I have loved him?
It wasn't a matter of loving him,
because you couldn't have done it
more or better.
It was a matter of having
him accept the world.
Remember, you told me
that before knowing him
you had never imagined
one could hate the world that much.
The fear of running into him,
someday, somewhere,
when it'll be too late.
Yes, you needed more time.
One cannot explain the world
to anyone.
But for Jean,
with a lot of tenderness, perhaps...
Jeanne avoided every place
that had seen them together and happy.
- Jeanne
- Jean.
The memory of Jean haunted her.
I am a crazy boy.
No, you are not a crazy boy.
You are a crazy girl.
No, I am not a crazy girl.
We must decide to change everything
when we understand
that everything is wrong.
Jean, look, I found it at home.
I'll have plants everywhere.
Jeanne.
Even in her room,
images and words haunted her.
Runaway child said the judge.
True, I naturally got
the desire to leave.
And to die, already.
School didn't interest me
nor the craft they chose for me.
I left.
I stole a scooter.
Motorcycle cops caught us
on the road to Amiens.
My father picked me up at the station.
The shame.
My father.
I left again.
At home we called cops, pigs.
I left the job.
Juvenile offender said the judge.
I like that word, it reminds you
of that bloody freedom.
A fortnight at Fresnes,
being sorted.
Before joining what they call,
rehabilitation centre.
There, blockhead wing.
Blockhead.
A breakout.
We steal what we find
in the instructors' dressing room.
Farmers denounce us.
They find us asleep in a field
at dawn. Bastards.
I'm in a cell, they come to tell me:
Your father is dead.
I'm released.
I quit the job my judge had found me.
I'm hiding in Pigalle.
Days in caf?s, nights often.
On the walls of the cell,
there are many things written.
Welcome to the Hotel Continental.
The lions are caged.
The daggers of revenge.
The paths of hope.
They locked me in one Sunday.
I meet you.
Jeanne, I cry when I think
about the day I met you.
Jeanne, you're so nice.
Jeanne, you're tired of me.
Jeanne, help me.
Jeanne, you taught me everything.
Yet it's him who did it. Listening
to him, I understood the world.
It was difficult to calm him down
since you understood his anger.
What's more, you shared it.
How to explain gentleness,
indulgence,
and that the world is so strong,
so rich.
Perhaps more beautiful than
in our best dreams.
Jeanne especially avoided
the Au Pan Coup? of their love,
where everything collapsed when she
realized that Jean's promise
not to leave her was only a reprieve
and that one day he'd run away
as he had told her
on their first meeting.
I think there is evil in me,
when something's going too well,
I break it, when someone loves me,
I leave.
And if I find a place
where I'm happy,
my only idea is to flee.
So what?
Tormented soul.
The beautiful story.
Do you think this is the way to live?
You look like your mother.
It's a long journey
to St Gervais d'Auvergne.
Fortunately Ginette loves reading.
As she approaches
her native village,
the traveller feels deeper down
an unknown emotion,
at once upset and happy,
Ginette is watching the landscape
that seems familiar to her.
She is now on her way to the farm
where she used to live
before leaving for Paris.
She stops when she sees
a familiar silhouette in the yard
and a cry bursts out from her lips,
Mom.
Mademoiselle,
I often called you without success.
Either you were out and your father
didn't know when you'd be back,
or there was nobody home.
I'm writing for the fourth time about
the rents you still owe me.
Do you want to keep the studio?
I kept my promises and didn't mention
it to your father as you asked me.
I hope you'll keep yours
and won't disappoint my trust.
You'll have your dough, old bag.
Pierre?
Jeanne.
It's alright.
You know the other day
I told you about the room.
Yes.
I've got another letter
from the owner.
4 monthly payments.
It's a big sum.
You're nice.
I'm really embarrassed,
you're the only one I could tell.
My father? No.
Doesn't want to help me.
I avoid speaking of that room
with him.
And you know he never really agreed.
Almost nothing.
I had a layout to do for the cover
of a paperback book, I gave up.
I can't draw a single line.
I don't think so.
I don't think I'll ever paint again.
I don't think so.
Yes.
Something broken, really.
As soon as possible.
I've decided to go tomorrow
to pack my things,
I'll give back the key
to the caretaker
and I'll send what I owe
to the owner.
Yes.
Goodbye Pierre. Thank you.
Anyway I'll see you on Thursday?
Goodbye.
You should do paintings
that represent walls
exactly as they are.
That exists already.
Paintings and photos as well.
Who cares? And it's useless
to write poems too,
they are already on walls.
Tracks.
All in all what matters is not
to discover but to rediscover.
Yes, paint your walls.
If we feel like it,
let's write our names everywhere,
on walls, trees, benches, statues.
Who cares?
Here, someone has already
written my name.
Jean.
Who is that Jean?
Jeanne, we have so little time.
So little time.
Jean broken finger.
You know, I heard them all.
Cut finger. Jean owes five francs
to the caretaker, I owe 50 kg.
And I answered,
I owe nothing to no one.
(The previous subs were French puns
with the name of Jean Doit)
Jeanne, do you know that
in Malaysia there are
plants and flowers that grow in
minutes?
Jeanne, have you noticed,
there are no black flowers.
Jeanne, you already have some mail.
Dear Miss, regarding our contract
to the renting
of my studio,
19 rue Turbeau, Paris XVII,
here is the list
of the objects and furniture
you'll have to return in the same
condition when you leave.
A foldable walnut table,
a small white rectangular table,
two outdoors chairs freshly painted.
A double bed in good condition.
300 books, 35 hardbacks.
A white coloured tureen,
a family painting, a bed lamp,
a refrigerator,
a dozen plates, white porcelain
with blue flowers, 2 chipped.
6 forks, 6 spoons, 6 knives, 12
glasses, a breadboard, a rolling pin.
- Jeanne, there is no way you...
- We'll see.
Jeanne, I went to the cinema.
I'll come back at midnight.
See you later. Love.
Jean.
While you were out, I read them all.
Where do they come from?
From some kind of bazaar on the road
to Manosque, 2 years ago.
Between 2 packs of washing
powder and fruit crates.
It's a beautiful collection.
I had the album for almost nothing,
people there think it's worthless.
Marie Aubert. Marie Spin?le.
These postcards tell
the life of a woman.
At first Marie was 16, she lives in
Taverns in the Var.
Miss Aubert,
Tavernes-pr?s-Barjols, Var.
13.06.07
1907.
Happy birthday.
Madeleine.
Come and have lunch as soon as possible
in Tavernes-les-Bains.
Nice.
Thinking of you,
is thinking of happiness,
it's hoping as in beautiful fables
for sweet joy that intoxicates my
heart and gives it ineffable hours.
Souvenir from Barjols.
Souvenir. Souvenir.
A kiss from Tavernes.
Barjols November 8, 1907.
Station area flooded.
Souvenir from Tavernes.
Each page is a
fragment of Marie's life.
Here it's Marie maybe.
Meanwhile Marie and Louis met
and were in love.
Marie followed Louis to Toulon.
Marie Aubert became Marie Spin?le.
- Here, their son?
- No, little Gabriel, their nephew.
Do you recognize our little imp?
He's just come to say hello.
His dad and his mom
send their best wishes
to cousin Marie.
Little Gabriel has had
whooping cough for a fortnight.
It's tiring him.
Cuddles from us all. Marc. P?.
We should be very gentle
with children. Always.
Give them all possible gentleness.
Then there's the war.
Other floods,
other thoughts, other memories,
kisses.
Louis dies. Time goes by.
The fashion for postcards passes.
Marie gives up her collection.
These ones remained all mixed up
at the end.
1948, the last one.
Marie Spin?le probably died alone
in her house
in silence and flowers,
like in her beautiful album.
That's it. The story of a lifetime.
Our story.
Marie, Louis,
little Gabriel's whooping cough.
All now lost in time.
Is little Gabriel still alive?
And his children?
Out of this world too. Or nearly so.
And those who bathe happily...
Taverns, Place des Jardins.
Three children with caps, one of them
nicely smiling at the camera.
Today, three little old men, perhaps,
reading their newspaper in front
of the tobacconist, God knows where?
From our time on this planet,
there will be nothing left, nothing,
nothing at all.
I'm stupid.
It doesn't matter.
What's important is to live.
Sure, sure. And as well as possible.
Jeanne, everything's falling apart.
On their shoulders, people have
thousands of years of regrets,
remorse, bitterness, hope, despair.
I don't care what will remain
of our time on this planet.
Let's live.
One day, one of those bombs may
blow up, and nobody thinks about it.
Everything will be destroyed,
kisses will be cold,
especially, the only thing
perfectly beautiful, nature.
This is what I think about, what
I'm afraid of, that everything stops,
that something happens
much more serious
than all my little problems,
something stronger than all.
I understood that this
refusal of happiness
was mostly a refusal to live.
But as I loved him,
I hoped to change him.
You changed him for a time,
then his nature was stronger and won.
This is probably when
he decided to flee.
Yet he loved you.
Did you remove his portrait?
I couldn't look at it anymore,
especially in mirrors.
His reflection gave the illusion
that Jean was in the room.
And this portrait reminds me of
both a beautiful and a terrible time.
Michel had invited us
to his house in Provence.
For the first days
Jean was very happy.
From early morning until evening
we went cycling.
Often we'd go to the sea.
We laughed.
Jeanne, if you play a trump,
hearts win.
The 4-leaf clover of clubs
brings luck.
We should repaint all Paris
with these colours.
And us as well.
With all these colours.
With all these colours.
With all these colours.
With all these colours.
Jeanne!
Jeanne!
Come!
Jean wanted to know the names
of all trees, all flowers.
Mimosa blooms in winter, my love.
A species provides the snakewood,
that plant is usually called,
sensitive
because it folds its leaves
at the slightest touch.
Mimosa belongs to the acacia species
its yellow flowers gathered
in small spheres
are sold as mimosa.
Acacia is a false mimosa, my love.
The orange tree is cultivated
for its flowers and fruit.
The cypress is an evergreen conifer,
with a severe beauty.
Soon the dictionary was insufficient,
we bought 7 small atlases.
On the back cover:
pocket scientific background.
Wildflowers 1, Wildflowers 2
Garden Flowers, Forest Flowers,
Alpine Flowers,
Medicinal Plants, Marsh Flowers.
It'd take years to know everything,
my love.
To which category belongs
daffodil and periwinkle,
bellflower, wood sedge,
touch-me-not balsam,
forest mint?
Bastard balm, forest cow-wheat,
forget-me-not, bent silene,
wood violet...
Look at this picture.
Laugh, Jean, laugh,
laugh, Jean, laugh!
And then suddenly
he couldn't stop laughing.
Done.
I pressed the shutter.
He laughed a long, long time.
We laughed a long time.
At each stop, a memory,
Cherries in Cogolin,
a gendarme in Gonfaron,
a small patisserie in Jouques,
two fake beatniks in Manosque,
further, a sunset,
and Jean playing cowboy.
He had changed his face,
even his voice,
he had learned to smile again.
I remember.
Jeanne, Jeanne, come down, it's dawn.
Arthur, my brother Arthur,
dawns are disappointing.
Listen, Jean:
Light breaks where no sun shines;
Where no sea runs,
the waters of the heart
Push in their tides; (...)
Light breaks on secret lots,
On tips of thought
where thoughts smell in the rain...
Above the waste allotments
the dawn halts.
Dylan Thomas,
an English poet who often spoke
of sea and flowers, like you.
I remember.
We talked.
We talked.
Imagine that man
cannot control nature anymore.
Start by thinking about
a deserted garden.
Herbs are growing as high as that,
invading everything.
Paths are disappearing,
roads, tar is breaking,
melting down, land is reappearing.
The Eiffel Tower is slowly rusting,
ivy is running along metal rods.
We are going back into prehistory.
The order they invented is wrong,
it's disorder disguised as order.
Aligned trees, soldiers, schoolyard,
always in line. Get in line.
To fall back into line, to hold
one's rank, to keep one's rank.
Get in line.
Stay in line, goodbye nature.
We talked.
Then his mood changed.
Jean took refuge in silence.
He avoided me,
stayed alone hours at a time,
left when the sun went down
and went swimming at night.
Rain, the holidays end.
Jean, you've fought again.
Come in!
Jeanne, I'm dying.
Keeping on pretending to die...
Stop, Jean, stop!
One morning Michael went down
to the studio
and decided to draw
a portrait of Jean.
All the time he posed,
he remained silent and motionless
in the middle of the room.
Yesterday or the day before,
I don't remember too well,
I showed you two
acid green delivery trucks,
it's the green of leaves in spring.
It's the green of my dress.
How wonderful that the blue of the sky
complements the green of the grass,
trees, everything.
Colour catches my eye.
Colour moves me.
To steal nature and give it back.
I see in purple the colour of shadows.
You don't say anything, Jean?
We're going back to Paris.
I'll take that job,
I'm not made for it,
but who's made for it?
Working is absurd.
There are lots of people who do
something that interests them.
How lucky!
You want to rebuild the world?
One can decide not to live.
What about me, Jean?
We went back to Paris.
Jean worked on a building site.
He hoped manual work
would prevent him from thinking.
A month later he fled.
I would have wanted
to redo his whole life.
To give him the childhood he'd lacked,
or the strength to forget it.
I have little to say.
I know so little about him.
A minute.
I'm going out for a few minutes, Sir.
It was a morning about 4 months ago,
I arrive at 8:45 am to open the shop,
I notice in the doorway,
in the dark, a big package.
I set my foot on it to check it,
the package moves.
That was Jean.
You can't tell those stories.
I can't tell you why I laughed.
Because of him, his funny look,
everything.
I showed him in.
He was hungry.
He washed, and then he spoke.
- What did he say?
- He wanted to go far away.
A great trip to India.
About your daughter Jeanne,
he loved her.
He told beautiful things about her.
I offered to let him to stay as long
as he wanted in a room upstairs,
a kind of junk room.
He stayed there for six days.
Three days without leaving his room.
In the evening,
after the workers' departure,
he went out to buy some milk, bread,
books.
I brought a cold meal three times
and we had dinner together.
I stayed with him until morning.
He liked to listen and talk too.
- What was he talking about?
- What do you want to know?
Tell me about him,
I want to hear about him.
My daughter loves him,
I want to know.
It's madness to try and talk about a man
in a few words.
I can't tell you anything.
He is very good and very sad.
He fled to avoid making
Jeanne unhappy.
Finally, you make a saint of him.
No, he tries to understand.
Probably there is inside him,
I don't know what,
an absence, a lack that makes it
difficult for him to live.
I know that,
these beings are dangerous.
Jeanne's Mother was like that.
She fled too, she broke my life.
I wanted to spare Jeanne that.
But of course nothing can be avoided.
He speaks of her
with great gentleness.
But he fled.
That kind of people don't hesitate.
Why don't we meet the others,
not those who flee, not those
who want to rebuild the world,
no, the others,
those who would help you
to bear it as it is,
those who would surround you
with tenderness,
those who would give you their hand.
It happens sometimes,
Jean may change.
No, it's over, Jean is dead.
I've got his whole story
in this briefcase.
They found his body
a few months ago,
in the garden of a house
in the suburbs of Lyon.
He's buried there.
Oh little Jean. You should have given
yourself the time to understand.
I went to Lyon,
I saw the doctor at the hospital.
He told me.
Jean let fever and hunger
take him away.
I searched, I found
almost all of those who knew him.
You were the last one.
My daughter doesn't know he's dead,
I don't think I'll tell her.
Jeanne is less strong
than she believes.
I'm afraid for her.
I can't do anything.
Jeanne couldn't refrain herself
from going back one last time
to Au Pan Coup?, because that's where
they meet near the end.
Where is he now?
Elsewhere. On another site.
Jeanne, you're not well.
Go home, go to bed, you're burning.
Jeanne dared not say
that Jean was gone.
Jeanne saw signs everywhere,
apparently not connected to her pain
yet which relentlessly
plunged her back into it.
I would like to start over,
find the room again,
Jean, our laughter.
Jean!
The green spot there was
my son's room.
I lived there for 30 years.
Then the City of Paris
decided to destroy it.
We were rehoused. Oh, I'm fine.
It's bigger.
It's the end.
I would have liked to stay
there until the end,
with my memories.
It's nice to listen to me,
people don't have the time.
I'm the neighbourhood's loony,
that's what they say.
It's somewhat true.
Sometimes I lose control.
Deep down, madness
is simply perhaps no longer
belonging entirely to oneself.
Sometimes
confused things wander in my head,
words come out of my mouth,
my arms, my hands make gestures
that I don't understand,
I have a tune in my head.
I love music.
I realize that I sing at home,
or even in the streets,
out loud, as they say.
I remember you,
I saw you 3 or 4 months ago.
You were in the street,
I was in a caf?.
The people in the caf? said
that you were hard, authoritarian.
I love flowers. People.
People, words, a word.
People should never talk
nonsense again, never.
It's mild.
The good days are really short.
It is said, but it's true.
The winter was mild too.
It hardly snowed.
It rained in spring.
In Paris, it often rains in spring.
Yes, it rained.
In 40, in the summer, in Royan,
it rained daily for a whole month.
Can you imagine? Every day.
In the end people were
swimming in the rain. It was fun.
Now there are really
no more seasons anymore.
Winters are mild, rain falls
in summer and fall, in spring.
Some say it's because
of all their atomic things.
These are stories,
there had always been summers
with rain and mild winters.
Do we know? We know nothing.
Rue Henri Barbusse, near the
Jardin du Luxembourg. Rue Barbusse.
Don't shout!
Can't you see it's closed.
- I'm asking if you're for hire?
- I'm asking if you're for hire?
There are some taxis,
there's no shortage.
Will you stand here all day long?
- You could be polite!
- Are customers polite?
I'm asking you, please, Sir,
would you drive me
to 16 rue Barbusse?
I don't want to,
there are other taxis.
There, taxis, move!
But don't touch me!
Acacia,
periwinkle,
cyclamen,
bellflower,
wood sedge,
touch-me-not balsam.
My love.
How can one not love life?
Why?
Pierre who liked Jeanne kept quiet.
He knew that Jeanne suffered less
from Jean's departure
than from the despair to have failed
to give him the love of life.
She understood that after his escape,
inevitably Jean would
encounter death.
Jean, everything is fragile,
can we live by a memory?