Panorama: Ways of escape

16 December 2013
Festival
By Anaelle Meunier
  • 1066_Misterio

 “You cannot simply run away, you have to run the right way.” Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz

Departure, flight, escape, the road… these themes have always inspired cinema – the art of movement itself – to such an extent that they have given birth to a genre: the road movie. Think of Easy Rider, from 1969, but also 1959’s North by Northwest and The Grapes of Wrath from 1940. These themes have also greatly fed short films, from the countless chase scenes of slapstick comedies to our National Grand Prix winner from 2013, Before Losing Everything, not to mention the animated adventures of Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote!

Twenty films across three programs whose aim is to run away, escape, leave, hit the road… far from one’s family and work, far from routine, from society, from danger… even far from oneself in madness and imagination… which Henri Laborit saw as the genuine Praise of Flight.

 Misterio by Chema García Ibarra (Spain – 2012)

 

There is one rule of the game: all of these films were shot in the 2000s and all are new to Clermont-Ferrand. Most are fiction, but animation (Nullarbor, Australia), even experimental animation (The Funk, Australia), documentary (even mockumentary – Nostradamos, Quebec) and choreography (The Runner, Canada) are also represented. The spectrum ranges widely from chosen or forced geographic exile and internal flight to social problems (La part sauvage, Belgium) and family problems (Nati per correre, Italy), future societies (Longe do Eden, Portugal and Sniffer, Norway), nostalgia and gentle madness (The Importance of Sweet & Salt, Belgium), mental illness (Contracuerpo, Spain), strangeness (Misterio, Spain), tragedy and humor (La huida, Spain).

Some characters act, others are acted upon, and still others passively resist the things that oppress them, much as Herman Melville’s Bartelby and his “I would prefer not to” (Hetschenpetsch, Germany). Yet all of their choices raise questions for us.

We hope you’ll have a safe trip in their company!

 Nullarbor by Alister Lockhart, Patrick Sarell (Australia – 2011)