La Guerre est proche

You hear the traffic, the cicadas. You think you can also hear the wind as you see the tall wind turbines turning, as if the smallest natural element could be used and mastered in this peaceful landscape marked by the hand of man. Little by little, La Guerre est proche will mark this southern countryside of today with the scars of History. By creating a tension between the landscape she films and the mostly off-screen words of texts or testimonies, Claire Angelini explores the archaeology of this place, which at first sight seemed so ordinary, insignificant. The Rivesaltes camp, opened in 1938 and closed in 2007, has a heavy past, which the film uncovers in four parts: the architect, the Spaniard, the Harki and the activist. Through very precise work on the duration of her shots, on the process of remembering and the disconnect between what is said and what is shown, the film-maker restores the dimension of time to what today appears as lifeless matter, meaningless interlacings of rubble, tiles and wire. In a fascinating treatise on corrosion read on the images of the skeleton of a building, the architect describes the slow but sure destruction that, once the first drop of rain has penetrated a roof, is the inevitable fate of any abandoned building. The wind turbines in the opening shots thus presaged the film’s agenda, rendering the wind visible, not so easy to master after all. In fact, ruin was in the building’s genes: why should a place used throughout the 20th century to imprison people not finally face itself a tragic end?

Charlotte Garson