Extract
[...] They are in the background, an attentive listener. Speno achieves this with subtlety by favoring the angle of a natural dialogue, almost a monologue, so free is the person to speak, digress, and reflect as if they were alone. The effect varies more or less depending on the willingness to talk, the ease in front of the camera, but all the portraits are both extremely personal and universal. The sound is also carefully crafted to give the impression of being in the same room as the person, as if we were at the origin of the discussion. [...]
[...] « La parole aux morts" is a documentary series that filmmaker Joffrey Speno began in 2013. He made his video portraits public in 2020. This endless project is now unfolding in 30 portraits of his loved ones, each with its own duration and content. The question about Speno's work is as follows: how does he stage the listening of the living who speak of death in order to sublimate humanity and question the object "film" itself?" First, Speno defines a simple protocol for his interviews: he films the people in a fixed shot without any other effect. [...]
[...] However, this title is honest and misleading, it reveals the complex identity of the person being questioned. Bastian, who talks about rupture and the mourning of his father, explains his perception of these notions by generalizing them to better hide the emotions that are taking hold of him. However, his emotions are well visible and audible to the listener. His gestures, his eyes, his voice that sometimes falters, trembles, his facial expressions, are all essential elements that we analyze as humans to enter into empathy with this unknown person. [...]
[...] According to the response, he bounces back on an element to go further. Bastian, for example, links the rupture and the death but rather than dissociating them, we do not know to what extent. We then guess the question of Speno: 'for you, what is the difference between mourning after the death of a person or after a rupture?' and Bastian develops. Later, he talks about the funeral as a turning point and we guess the of Speno for the person to bring us answers and to find them herself. [...]
[...] The sound, vehicle of the relationship1. Speno understood the importance of listening, to be silent and let people express themselves in order to create a real dialogue. It allows to sublimate the intimate when it comes to erase his intervention without suppressing this sharing effect, this time more between the person filmed and the spectator. For Speno, the word can be understood as 'Immaterial word, block of symbolism and subjectivity, but also material, made of sound and rhythm.' as written by Pedro Butcher about Coutinho's cinema. [...]
