C’est ma vie qui me regarde

After filming European neighbours that have long lost the media’s interest (People of Sarajevo, released in June 2014), Damien Fritsch focuses on an even closer and more lonely neighbour: his own. When the film begins, the interior of the old lady’s house resembles a total ruin. Men come to clear the room where Alice, a recently widowed octogenarian, has her meals served by a home help. The disturbed layers of dust swirl around her whilst a cleaner removes a piece of rotting mattress from another room. The director who we guess has an increasingly active hand in Alice’s life rather than being a simple observer displays a rare ability to listen. The gradual renovation of the house with the neighbour/filmmaker’s help parallels the emergence of a life story—poignant snippets that fluctuate as memories ebb and flow. “It’s my life looking at me”—the enigmatic sentence spoken at the window summarises the singular state of great age: as if the life she has lived is staring at her, Alice seems to await death but still has an appetite for sweets and “fags”. In this indoor film, whose setting is redolent of the craftswomen’s shops in Alain Cavalier’s 24 Portraits, the work on chiaroscuro becomes a luminous form of waiting to make the final crossing of a threshold. (Charlotte Garson)