Automne

A forest in autumn. A house in the forest. A woman inthe house. She is elderly andbent but, in all truth, thisworld is ageless, perhaps even no longer exists?. Besides, what disaster has devastated the forest that now offers the old woman so many branches to be picked off the ground, loaded onto her cart and burnt in her stove? Like the contemplative beauty of the framing, with alternating shots taken from inside and outside the house, the silence surrounding her gestures plunges us into a kind of ritual. In the face of the elements and passing time, the woman’s repeated forays for wood testify to life’s perseverance in an almost totally isolated place. “Resistance” would be too strong a word, but then again… The woman gathers her firewood from the wreckage of a hurricane that could well have destroyed her house.