RETINAS is a challenging movie with a weird style of filming, which depicts an encounter that is absolutely abnormal in the most normal way. To preserve a raw relationship with the audience – organically raw - we will not produce an aesthetic and sophisticated movie - may thinking of Samuel Beckett's short film FILM with Buster Keaton (1965), particularly for the strangeness of the retinal crises of Lillian.
This filming needs specific preparation for the sequences with the double, in a close collaboration between Director, D.O.P., Editor, and Actor. The filming of RETINAS takes place over a short period, with modest means - like the film À BOUT DE SOUFFLE by Jean-Luc Godard (1960). These are the conditions in which the Filmmaker Yannik Ruault produced his two feature films before, ABRAHADABRA (2017) and SNOWGLOBES (2024). He learned to work like this following the know-how that the French Director Jean-Pierre Mocky passed on to him - he had discussions with him in preparation for his first feature movie.
The organic nature of a movie is also that of a dream. A film has the same function: it pacifies - by bringing together two images, two words, two characters, two actions, two movements, two ideas… and it only exists in this combination. Perhaps the movie really exists only in the mind of the viewer?... Strange thing, the birth of a movie... RETINAS is a weird movie animated by its own creative storytelling, characterized by retina and narcissism. Present from the writing, it will assert itself during filming, then editing, through unusual choices.