Découverte d’un principe en case 3

“Introduce a virus into the story”: one of the self-imposed literary chosen by twenty resident comic-strip authors could well apply to this film’s dramaturgy. In the studious calm of the phalanstery, a curious protagonist begins to voice his concerns. He “understands nothing” about the rules of the game (“that’s why my stories are bloody boring”, points out this melancholic soul). To him, the huge open space seems like a prison, while the splendid building (the Royal Saltworks at Arc-et-Senans) inspires him to a Foucaldian critique of architectural paternalism. As for the sounds of the surrounding countryside, his impaired hearing renders them inaccessible! While attentive to the mild disturbance that this “spoil-art” creates among his peers, the filmmakers do not abandon the host of discoveries spawned by this experience of fleeting coexistence. They capture with precision a moment of group creation that tautly balances freewheeling imagination and hi-tech graphics. A co-authored film must surely encounter similar tension during its own making.