Underground

France

2001

8 Min

Color

1.37:1

None

No Subtitles

Audio in None

Currently 3.3/5 Stars.
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DIR Emmanuel Lefrant

Synopsis

Roland Barthes used to say « Aptly named, film (pellicula) is but skin without a gape, without an opening, without a wound». With direct cinema, this formula, which became axiomatic because of the flawless imagery found in traditional cinema, no longer verifies. The ‘smooth’ film of the image is metamorphosed into fragile skin. Contrary to scientific cinematography from the beginning of the century, the micro-organisms are not re-created (by being filmed) but rather reproduced directly on the film (frozen on the film strip, but made to move on screen by the driving mechanism of the projector). The point is, paradoxically, to reach the extreme of realistic representation by way of an abstract image, by actually showing the micro-organisms, with no other mediator than the lens of the projector. Every single curve, every single asperity that leaves a mark on the film is the movement of time itself, a trace of its passage. The ‘secret forms’ of emulsion are unveiled, and emphasize the materiality of celluloid, and the processes that reveal the image.

Proposing further evidence that film material is not inert, this film was made by literally burying pieces of black film during different periods of time and in different kinds of grounds (soil, snow, mud, etc.). —LightCone.org

Director

Emmanuel Lefrant

Emmanuel Lefrant’s film work is based on abstraction being apprehended as landscape. A landscape that is actor or producer of emotions and subjective experiences. The films lie on the idea of representing, of revealing an invisible world (the secret forms of emulsion), a nature that one does not see. They are contemplative movies, which are presented under the shape of a physical experience, an experience of the body. The time of the screening is a great ordeal (the educated eye and ear suffer) because they are films that work on the hallucinatory mode: they are pure visual and kinaesthetic experiences.

Born in 1975 in France, Emmanuel LEFRANT studied cinema at the University of La Sorbonne Nouvelle where he started an academic work on abstract films. He then spent several years in Montreal where he founded the kinaesthetic research collective PHYLM with audio artist Philippe Pasquier. Back to Paris in 2004, he works again on performances first with Nominoë- performance collective… read more