Lecture by the Larrieu brothers

Lecture organised in partnership with the Monaco Audiovisual Institute 

"We didn’t reread Georges Perec’s book, but the title came to mind when we were thinking about the concept of space in our films. In our early forays, filmmaking was about leaving the house with a camera to go and film the vast, mountainous spaces, then return home to project the exposed images on the walls. Cinema as a window which pierces through the familiarity of internal walls to bring in a vanishing point, a meeting place... Between the interior and the exterior, the inside and the outside.

Then, actors and actresses arrived. Where should we put them? How should we manage the link, the relationship between the actor and the (natural) space around them? Will theatre triumph over the authenticity of the surrounding environment and turn it into mere sets or, conversely, will wilderness spaces offer a new perspective on the bodies of the actors that are immersed into them?

From Roland’s Pass, where a family is permanently "outside" with no shelter, to To Paint or Make Love, where a couple’s house is the true main character, not to mention Happy End, where the anti-hero runs from place to place seeking an "impossible room", through to the final explosion of "Love Is the Perfect Crime", where the literature professor finally becomes one with the landscape, we will revisit these "species of spaces" that our characters pass through or inhabit. We will learn that "geography" often prevails over "history", establishing its own dramatic art. Finally, we will stop in our own favourite space: a household terrace at sunrise or as night falls, at twilight. In our view, probably the ultimate location for a film scene. A fleeting scene".

Arnaud and Jean-Marie Larrieu