Tiens-moi droite

“My brain is all blue, but I still inhabit it.” For five years, Zoé Chantre, who has suffered since childhood from scoliosis and cerebral angioma, took to sketching during her attacks. Alone at her table, she then corrected, rubbed out and sometimes animated her drawings, mixing them with other images filmed with her small camera. Playing on the synchrony (or not) between her commentary and filmed texts, between autobiographical fragments and her project for “thirteen books each named after one of my vertebrae”, the story escapes the solipsism of complaint. Exploiting humour and an open documentary form, Chantre asks the question of opening (this time with a scalpel) as a way of bringing her relief: should she agree to having a metal spine to replace her own weakened backbone? The film title rests on a slightly farcical twist that paves the way for emotion: the French expression “Tiens-toi droite” (hold yourself straight) is in the familiar register that parents use with their children. By replacing “toi” (yourself) with “moi” (me), this becomes a poignant request addressed to a fraternal “you”, who in the film turns out to be more than one person.