Du zi cun zai

Filming the lonely existence of a whole neighbourhood, the filmmaker spirals in on his own anguish, between morbid inertia and ascetic temptation.

An old man draws water and laboriously carries his buckets up a steep road, two young girls pass by; an old woman cautiously descends the slope now covered in snow. Soon, these sketches give way to others, filmed at closer range, down below. These outdoor comings and goings are now tinged with the inquiring intimacy of the filmmaker, whose first-person intertitles distil his doubts. The strange serenity emanating from the windows where his neighbours go about their daily lives narrows the viewpoint even further, as the filmer’s doubts overwhelm him: “I repeat the same old movements. All I want is not to feel anything anymore.” An existential vacuum and creative barrenness transform the filmmaker into a recumbent figure, paralysed in his home by his own solipsism. He will have to find a way of filming “the others”, but without hiding behind them. How can he represent the inhabitants’ daily movements, life outside or time passing through the landscape, with a gaze that is for once involved? The documentary ultimately draws strength from this metaphysical meditation. It challenges the ambition of the cinema of reality to re-create life, when in fact only too often it carves it as a dead letter. (Charlotte Garson)