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L'OEIL DE L'AUTRE / NOW AND THEN
year 2004 length 90' colour 35mm Country France
directed by John Lvoff
Cast Julie Depardieu (Alice), Dominique Reymond (Juliette), Eric Elmosnino (Jérôme), André Marcon (Gaspard), Lionel Parlier (Alain)
ScreenplayCamille Fontaine, John Lvoff
Cinematography Sabine Lancelin
Editing Valérie Condoyer
Art Direction Manu de Chauvigny
Costume design Nathalie Raoul
Producers Martine Marignac, Mauriche Tinchant
Production Pierre Grise Productions, Rhone-Alpes Cinema
World Sales
Pierre Grise Productions
52, rue Charlot, Paris - 75003, France
Tel: +33 1 4027 9906 Fax: +33 1 4027 9716
Press OfficeSandrine Pillon
Pierre Grise Productions
Tel. +33 1 4027 9906 Fax +33 1 40279716
pierre-grise-productions@wanadoo.fr
synopsis
Alice (Julie Depardieu) is a young photographer assigned by the Ministry of the Environment to shoot a series of photos of predefined sites in the Alps of Haute Provence. She is replacing a famous photographer who had been doing this job for the past seven years and who has mysteriously stopped. The Landscape Observatory was receiving his work regularly when suddenly there was nothing. Not only were there no more photos, but the man himself disappeared.
It is this in this context that Alice is hired to finish the job. She must reproduce, exactly, the photos of the previous years on the same day and at the same time. These constraints, and the rather wild character of the young photographer create a tension. But, little by little, she begins to understand the eye of the other photographer and by the same token, develop a more lucid view on the world around her. She becomes an observer on several planes. Besides discovering the landscapes chosen by the other, she will meet people and be confronted with situations which will bring her closer and closer to this photographer she never met. Alice will be on a journey not only in space but also in time, in the footsteps of this man and, perhaps, discover the reason why he disappeared. In the end she will become a true photographer.
Do two analogous images exist? When we look, what do we see and what do we think we see? If a secret can be hidden inside an image, who will be able to see, understand, and translate it after we are gone? This is a subject that has been dealt with in European cinema ever since Blow Up by Michelangelo Antonioni but rarely has it assumed such explicit force in the telling of a story. All things considered, there is only one possible place where Julie Depardieu’s journey following the tracks left by a disppeared man can lead: to a snapshot of the woman with the scythe taken at the exact moment of her appearance where she is still invisible. The image of death is captured on a film negative but when it is finally recognisable, it is too late.
Giorgio Gosetti
director's statement
Why should there be a "photographic vigil" of the landscape? Is it because it is dying?
Photography in general, and landscape photography in particular may provoke certain nostalgia, a sentiment that "it was better before…" But in fact, is it not the usual comment made by the old to the young? It is with this in mind that I decided to write the story of a young woman, who is solitary, a bit disenchanted, having to face the difficulties of the contemporary world, and confronted with the eye of an older man. The difficulty in the project is in the transcription, with images, of the inner journey of this woman, her being in tune, in a sense, with the older photographer. Little by little, discretely, her look on things will change.
John Lvoff
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