Le Miroir aux alouettes

For Amalia Escriva, a few images, a few words suice to undo the excessive happiness in the myriad images of past, present and even future holidays, and to tarnish the lamboyant prosperity of a household. “In this house, no one wanted to see anything”. Neither the revolutions that were brewing in Indochina and Algeria, nor the fathers’ scattering throughout the colonies, and – above all, not a heart engraved on a tree. “Blanche and Algeria, the two separations that my father never got over.” A deadly blindness that inversed the course of events and set unhappiness and searing separation as the wellspring of the family’s continuation. If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, the road to heaven, on the other hand, is paved with bad intentions. (Yann Lardeau)