No Place like Home - Les films de Louise Bourque (part 2)
Ce mois-ci, nous présentons deux séances de cinéma expérimental à l'occasion de la parution du livre Expanded Nature : Ecologies du cinéma expérimental sous la direction de Elio Della Noce et Lucas Murari aux Light Cone Editions. La première réunit des cinéastes qui, alors que notre époque est marquée par l’ampleur des actions humaines sur le reste du vivant (l’Anthropocène), s’engagent dans des pratiques écologiques qui tendent à un décentrement du privilège attribué à l’humain. La seconde est l'occasion de découvrir l'ensemble des films d'Emmanuel Lefrant, le directeur de Light Cone, qui collabore régulièrement la Cinémathèque québécoise.
Présenté en collaboration avec Leadership for the Ecozoic, Critical Media Lab (McGill Anthropology Department), Hors Champ et Visions
Turmoil of unsheltered childhood; the dwelling as self.
An enclosed space, a struggle against the constraints of personal isolation explored through a fractured narrative. A man living in a broken down rented room in a Tourist Inn travels through his inebriety, his memories and his fantasies, transcending the limits of time and space which suddenly which suddenly intertwine. A film about loss and absence.
"The People in the House examines the dynamics of a family in crisis and questions the role of religious devotion in the perpetuation of dysfunction. The exterior of the house is never seen, and the family's anxiety, as is often the case, plays out within the confines of four walls. Filmed with a dreamy, surreal quality, The People in the House dwells within the tension between harmony and chaos."
- Liz Czach, Toronto Film Festival Catalogue, Canada, 1995
Home movies shot on the set of The People in the House.
Punk rock, direct animation with a tip of the hat to Len Lye.
Rooftop Song is a part of 3 videos made at the Lenox Hotel in Buffalo, N.Y.
An unearthed time capsule consisting of footage of the maker's self – an “exquisite corpse” with nature as collaborator. Bourque buried random out-takes from her first three films (all staged productions dealing with her family) in the backyard of her ancestral home (adjoining the grounds of a former cemetery) with the ambivalent intentions of both safe-keeping and unloading them (she was relocating). Upon examining the footage five years later she found that the material contained images of herself captured during the making of her first film. That discovery seemed handed over like a gift and prompted the making of this film, a metaphysical pas-de-deux in which decay undermines the image and in the process engenders a transmutation.)
Shot in first-person, this experimental film explores the ramifications of the devastating breakup of a romantic relationship.
“In home movies, the gesture of waving provides the future viewer with the acknowledgment of a constant ‘goodbye.’ Yet when the film is projected, it is as if the people waving are saying ‘hello’ from the past in the now, the moment of the projection. This film is an homage to the man behind the camera, mmy father the person who captured these fleeting moments.” Louise bourque.
