NE CHANGE RIEN- Torture, Beauty, and Song
By Pedro Costa, 2009,

At the AFI Film Festival, Pedro Costa introduced his latest documentary, “Ne Change Rien,” expressing that he sought to make a film about the process of creating music and in so doing, captured his friend, who, disillusioned with the caliber of the roles offered to her as an actress, decided to pursue singing. Being that Costa’s work usually focuses on the marginalized and poverty stricken in his native Portugal, it is intriguing that his new subject is French actress, Jeanne Balibar.

Widely known for her work on a range of international films, I fondly remember Balibar for her performance as Antoinette in Jacques Rivette’s unrequited love story, “The Duchess of Langeais.” Playing a 19th century high society lady turned cloistered nun, she realizes her part with precision, passion, and a lingering vulnerability.

Now in Costa’s creation, we see her play her self—a chain smoking, mysterious, soulful eyed chanteuse with a profound commitment to her music. Not so far removed from Antoinette, Balibar exhibits an intensity that is both fueled and tortured by her relentless quest to find meaning in the everyday.

“Ne Change Rien” is about the condition of creating, about the trance-like qualities of making music—about notes, rhythms, duration, pacing, friction, seduction, and misery.Balibar and her collaborators create melodies which are dreamlike but also terribly sad, about things such as the torture of love and the devil within. Costa intimately shows us their practice and recording space, sinking, even drowning deeply into their music as they sift through their own emotions.

Opening with the image of Balibar’s abstracted figure singing on stage surrounded by a velvety darkness, Pedro Costa sets the scene for a film which will take its time to reveal or perhaps never deliver a story, but with a beauty so intense it is difficult to look away. The film’s pacing is slow, sometimes torturously so, but honest in depicting the drudgery and obsession involved in the musical process. Costa keeps us in our seats with his sophisticated, stunning black and white imagery, which in itself is an inspiring study of the textural potential of DV to convey emotionally charged images. In moments, I suspect Costa presses his fingers on his lens to add a soft, organic, visceral haze around Balibar. Reminiscent of cinematography employed by the great Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr, Costa’s chiaroscuro lighting intensifies and heightens the presence of Balibar and her collaborators, as they record and drift through their Paris studio. Contrasted, rich, and smoky, the texture of the projected imagery is breathtaking—with rich blacks and shimmery whites creating a mood of polarities and raw sensations.

Just as directors have filmed, even loved their actresses with bewitching framing and lighting, so too does Costa. With long takes and extreme close ups absorbing the resonance and breathes in between the group’s music, he depicts Balibar with adoration. Perhaps in a trance himself, Costa enables Balibar to keep us at a distance, her music a barrier in-between. We experience her singing, compulsively repeating melodies, watching her relate to her band mates, in a circular, never ending pattern that delivers no resolve.

Balibar’s voice is unconventional, seductive, and beautifully flawed. In her quest to develop her singing, she takes classical lessons, straining her voice to reach difficult notes. We are reminded of the demands of her practice, but also question why this rebellious chanteuse even cares about traditional training, ridden with rules and limitations she breaks in her experimental music. It is clear that Balibar has a rigorous work ethic, desiring to be the best at her craft, seeking to be able to star in an opera as much as she can a show.

“Ne Change Rien,” is a unique music documentary which pulls us into Balibar’s world without compromise. Pedro Costa offers us a film which realistically, hypnotically, depicts the creative lives of his subjects in their connect, disconnect, beauty, and torture.