L'Eden et après

Perfect forethought in both the representation of the subject and, above all, in the completely conscious approach to the techniques of its representation. Metafictional methods and games with the functions of time and narration are not arbitrary allusions in Robbe-Grillet's works but rather a deliberate and inseparable part of the story itself, which irreversibly changes its essence. Example: when, during the opening credits, a voice-over utters a series of abstract words and verbal metaphors, we automatically begin to piece together these fragments into more coherent ideas, seeking connections between them and their meaning, etc. Throughout the film, these abstract words transform into actual events of the story, and verbal metaphors are replaced by visual metaphors and psychoanalytic/surrealistic symbols. In this way, the director has already provided us with the main components of the plot and their explanation in the introduction. However, this does not mean that we have been given the key to understanding the film - because, a) we only understand this during the course of the film, b) in the meantime, we are compelled to constantly contemplate the relationship between these inadequate pieces of information and the current plot, and finally c) we may reflect on the relationship between verbal representation and visual representation. There is certainly also a d), and e) – therein lies the beauty of it). Another example: symbolic compositions simultaneously split into general statements about the nature of desire and violence, comment on, or even anticipate the progression of the plot (when we see a blindfolded woman locked in a cage, it is both a reference to blinding and enslaving human desire and a foreshadowing of the future of the main character, who shortly thereafter ends up imprisoned with her eyes bound...). The main point is that the viewer never knows whether they are witnessing the course of the plot, a flashforward, a general symbol, a mere editing trick, or a character's imagination (which may later turn out to be the character's past and future). This could go on indefinitely… (06.03.2015)