Film Forum

“Is it an avant-garde autobiography? A faux found-footage film? A melancholic ode to cinema, especially B-movies and rare horror flicks from the 1970s? In essence, this beguiling and often mesmerizing feature debut from director Frank Beauvais is all of those and then some. Composed entirely of brief clips from hundreds of other movies, which are used to illustrate a running monologue detailing the filmmaker’s desperate and depressing stay in the French countryside, it’s sort of like watching Christian Marclay’s THE CLOCK* while listening to a highly literary, self-confessional voiceover that’s equal parts Knausgaard, Houellebecq and Fernando Pessoa… The work of a hardcore cinephile.” – Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter.

*A brilliant 24-hour montage of film clips referencing time, coordinated exactly with the time it is being experienced

Presented with generous support from the Ostrovsky Family Fund and the R.G. Rifkind Foundation Endowment for Queer Cinema.

FRANCE   2019   75 MINS.   IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH  SUBTITLES   KIMSTIM

Virtual Cinema program supported by the Robert Gore Rifkind Foundation.

Reviews

“Highly original and personal. Is it an avant-garde autobiography? A faux found-footage film? A melancholic ode to cinema, especially B-movies and rare horror flicks from the 1970s? In essence, this beguiling and often mesmerizing feature debut from director Frank Beauvais is all of those and then some. Composed entirely of brief clips from hundreds of other movies, which are used to illustrate a running monologue detailing the filmmaker’s desperate and depressing stay in the French countryside, it’s sort of like watching Christopher Marclay’s THE CLOCK while listening to a highly literary, self-confessional voiceover that’s equal parts Knausgaard, Houellebecq and Fernando Pessoa. The clips…are often hauntingly poetic, illustrating Beauvais’ story in ways that feel both direct and metaphorical, as if you’re watching a dream version of what the narrator is saying. The work of a hardcore cinephile.”
– Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter

“A man laid bare, a portrayal which sits half-way between depressive misanthropy and hyper-lucidity. A masterful example of ‘pillage’ and editing. There is real genius in Beauvais’ ability to craft a film which is ‘personal’ in the full sense of the word. A fascinating work.”
– Fabien Lemercier, Cineuropa

“A truly heterogeneous assemblage culled from a cinephila as admirably omnivorous as it is obviously unhealthy. A brisk, stimulating movie which concludes (correctly) that compulsive cinephilia is a rewarding parasite at the best of times.”
– Vadim Rizov, Filmmaker Magazine

“An innovative self- portrait. A wide-ranging and lacerating narration gives an unvarnished view into Beauvais’s thoughts during his tumultuous year. The narrative voice is very literary - unabashedly first person, often dripping in venom directed both inward and outward. A gift to cinephiles, all at once embodying, criticizing and transcending an unhealthy mode of passive interaction with life. (The film) exhibits the best kind of aesthetic innovation.”
– Joe Blessing, The Playlist

“Almost painfully moving. A devastating memoir made of movie clips… Extraordinary. The words, beautifully written… concise but rich details of family upbringing, personal worries, life events… (with) pure moving images, gracefully conjoined to Beauvais’s eloquent and frequently emotionally or existentially tormented narration... most often mysterious and evocative. A powerful picture of how the cinema can be channeled through a person’s very particular life, thoughts and feelings.”
– Daniel Kasman, MUBI

“This profusion of heterogeneous images amounts to a Burroughsian visual orgasm. Proves that the healing power of images is not just a theoretical assertion. This film will save you a couple of psycho-analytical sessions.”
– Cedric Succivalli, International Cinephile Society

“(A) magnificent film… (with) images of such visual power, laden with sensation.”
– Erika Balsom, Sight & Sound

“The pairings are associative; the images beguiling, fleeting and unceasing. Intimate prose (that) is sharp and poetic. Hypersonal, hermetic, confessional and global. Captures, unlike any work I’ve seen, the anxiety of our current era.”
– Sierra Pettengill, Filmmaker Magazine