SILHOUETTES: Cinematic narration on the fragility of memory and visual matter.
SILHOUETTES questions the fragility of memory and the impossibility of capturing what is fading. Some sequences in the film use an innovative multi-layered pictures technique: the different layers of the cinematographic picture — RGB (Red, Green, Blue) colors, light (gamma), and superimposing (alpha) — are processed separately. This method gives the film a unique texture, where the visual material becomes a symbol of memory, at once unstable, fragmented, and yet persistent — like retinal prints. In some scenes, these images are supplemented by exceptional images of real retinas, provided by the Wyss Center for Bio and Neuro Engineering (Switzerland).
The storytelling of SILHOUETTES draws on the Organic Motion approach, complementing the classic script and storyboard. It’s a new approach to cinematic storytelling, one I develop in my movies, inviting us to explore the story in a different way, guided by the rhythms and forms specific to the work. This approach creates a movie whose refined narrative emphasizes intimacy — like an inner confession — reinforcing the feeling of fragility.
SILHOUETTES is a amazing opportunity to shoot a film in the United Kingdom, with a team (shooting and post-production) of young French or French-speaking talents, in an historical location, a French heritage: the consular house in Edinburgh bought by General de Gaulle in 1942. This house welcomed many soldiers and refugees during the Second World War, but also in the following years many politicians and artists. This historical memory contributes to the memory of the film — for example with the scene of the portrait of General de Gaulle and the scene of the reading of the poem by Paul Eluard, who also stayed in this house.
- Yannik Ruault, Filmmaker.
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