Enfants Terribles

August - September 2009

“Enfant terrible: an unusually successful person who is strikingly unorthodox, innovative and/or avant-garde” (-Webster’s Dictionary). The term has gone from French (Les Enfants terribles is above all a great novel by Jean Cocteau later adapted for cinema by Jean-Pierre Melville) into English and has also become a common term used to describe the status and characteristics of some filmmakers. Being an enfant terrible takes a particular meaning in countries where censorship, social or religious taboos, politically correct thinking, conventions or mainstream codes are bravely provoked or broken by free artistic spirits. Not that an enfant terrible really wishes to become one: circumstances and inspiration mix to bring some filmmakers under the spotlights, when talent, spirit of independence and a desire to invent their own mode of expression become subversive. Subversion is not their goal; it is their way. Some may remain untamed forever; others may join the “system.” In any case, the enfants terribles films remain.

Chinese director Zhang Yuan (Crazy English, Seventeen Years) has long been considered as an embarrassing talent in his country: from his choice of subjects to his quietly cruel directing, he remains nothing less than a wonderful troublemaker. Palestinian Elia Suleiman (Divine Intervention) has always deliberately turned his back on any politically correct way…of being a Palestinian filmmaker. Uncompromised and highly personal, his films mix different genres to convey an image of his country and of his culture that keeps far from the usual well-intentioned conventions. Apichatpong Weerasethakul lives and works in a country where cinema, as all sectors of society, is under political pressure and impregnated with corruption. His unique style and stories serve a quest for truth based on a refined knowledge of popular culture, on a strong vision of long term consequences of war and military oppression and on a strong belief in cinema as the source of all dreams. Babak Payami left Iran to the US and then Europe, but managed to film his country in acrobatic conditions. A satirist of political absurdities as well as an admirer of ordinary people’s strength and humor, he portrayed an unusual Iran in his original way that goes beyond cinematic clichés.

- Marie-Pierre Duhamel Muller