Ce Gamin, là

In Monoblet, a small village in the Cévennes, the experiment run by Deligny to establish contact with allegedly incurable autistic children, in the everyday surroundings of rural life.

The Slightest Gesture had been built around a fable; the film kept the overall form of its story. Ce gamin, là recounts nothing, captures moments in the life of the network while avoiding turning it into a “subject”. “Ce gamin, là, is it a documentary or a fiction?, asked Deligny. It’s a documentary through and through. And for good reason: you can’t get Janmari to do anything other than what he does each day. You can’t make more of a documentary than that. And it looks like fiction because people have never seen anything like it. There’s nothing documentary or fictional about it, there’s what’s habitual, the habitual being real enough to surprise you…” (Cahiers du cinéma, Feb. 1990). Renaud Victor took part in the actions of the Cinélutte production and distribution collective created by Richard Copans when he first saw Le Moindre Geste, which made him decide to become a filmmaker. Deligny was circumspect about his idea of making a film on the network, and stipulated that he first had to live in the network for several months…The filming was integrated into the life of the network and Deligny’s thinking: “He watched the rushes, and based on this, he said what was important to highlight. At the same time, these images had another function, as they enabled him to adopt an overall approach to his work. As a result, the film became a work tool, both for him and for me.” (La Revue du cinéma, Sept. 1975).
Sandra Alvarez de Toledo