Pedro Costa's offers an admiring portrait of Straub and Huillet at work on their film Sicilia! and a unique lesson in cinema.
Où gît votre sourire enfoui? (Where lies your hidden smile?) is Pedro Costa's revealing study of the filmmaking process captures Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet while editing their drama Sicilia! (1998). Costa was given privileged access to document the uncompromising duo at work - every cut and its effect is discussed, and influences from Chaplin to Eisenstein are mentioned alongside the ethical and aesthetic implications of film technique. Costa later described the film as his first comedy and his first love story. In Six Bagatelles Pedro Costa takes unused scenes of Where Lies your Hidden Smile? and edits them into a new context.
‘
Oú gît…reinvents the idea and the practice of portraiture, or more generally of the homage. Through intelligence and attention it avoids maudlin hagiography. Nobody has put in sharper relief, made more tangible the dedication to clarity, the conviction that the image is appearance and the conviction that the form is the material mediation of an idea, which are at the core of Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub. In short, nobody has ever given us a clearer view of the classicism they claimed for themselves, and nobody has made clearer the legitimacy of that claim. Nobody has put in sharper relief the politics of such an affirmation: the insistence on preservation (of nature and culture) as the essential component of revolution.’ Jean-Pierre Gorin
The screening will be introduced by Hyun Jin Cho, film curator at the Korean Cultural Centre UK.
Où gît votre sourire enfoui?,
Where lies your hidden smile?, Portuguese title: Onde jaz o teu sorriso?, Dir. Pedro Costa, Portugal/France, 2001, HD/Digital, 104 mins., French with English subtitles.
6 Bagatelles,
Six Bagatelles, Dir. Pedro Costa, 2001, Portugal/France, HD/Digial, 18 mins., French with English subtitles.
With the kind support of Camões – Institute of Co-operation and Language, I.P
Back
