Vers Mathilde

“In each gesture, there is resistance and abandonment.” This is how the French choreographer Mathilde Monnier speaks about her relationship with dance and more precisely with the body. Claire Denis followed her during a creation, from the writing to the staging, and via the rehearsals. Let us assume that film is a skin and we then understand the reasons for which the filmmaker alternates between the use of Super 8 and 16 mm. Finding the right material, the ideal texture, this is all part of the research work that leads to becoming one with the approach of Mathilde Monnier. This presence of the medium, no matter how subtle it may be, gives rise to continuous attention to every gesture, leading each spectator to feel the curves drawn by the film. Finally, this mediation allows us to think that film and dance share the same language, but that we no longer really know which one feeds the other. With infinite sensitivity, Claire Denis films the future of a piece like a process of desire. (Visions du Réel)