Shown in Compétition #1.
Synopsis
Darkness never emerges but it is present. Some kind of teenage wasteland feel, unexpected storms and inviting landscapes are intermeshed. In a bewitching atmosphere, proximity and distance are revealed through a thoughtful structure where images and sounds confound the imaginary and the real. Sensuality and desire are seen as forbidden, somehow, as if faced with a glass wall. Only by looking back do we find ourselves in a moon-like space/place.
transcription
hai hai
oooooo
babes
hai
into the moon,
into fine powder,
incomplete semi-ghost,
low power
real, slow,
and heavy
my room is still all naked now
next morning
it’ll make sense
Text from the selection committee
Canadian artist Charlotte Clermont continues her experiments with both figurative shots and monochromatic ones (and backed-up by vibrant, noisy sounds) with special dark glass somewhere, picking up from the practices and motifs already explored in her 2019 piece you’re a plant whisperer and for me, it’s enough (a collaboration with Julien Champagne, screened at Festival des Cinémas Différents last year). Her work deals with sexuality through words, landscapes, still life shots or lesser known erogenous zones like the elbow (!).
– S.M.
Can you explain the connections between your previous film You’re a plant whisperer and for me it’s enough and your new film?
Special dark glass somewhere borrows two elements from You’re a plant whisperer and for me, it’s enough: the elbow symbol and the scrolling monochromatic shots. I understood that I had a new approach, using monochromatic shots to give rhythm to my images, but also to give the spirit “absent” and colored spaces, which I think allow us to easily take refuge in our unconscious, in order to interpret in our own way the series of figurative images. With the monochromatic shots, I had fun creating spaces for reflection but which still influence our train of thought since we are facing a specific color. I strongly believe that colors stimulate, differently according to each person, an emotion or a spectrum of emotions. For the elbow, I simply thought that it translated well the idea of desire, of the inaccessible, of fantasy. You’re a plant whisperer and for me, it’s enough has become, in a way, the premise of Special dark glass somewhere.
Your films deal with sexuality in a very open, yet subtle, way, can you please tell us more about this specific topic of your films and how it is related to your aesthetic choices (like the use of monochrome shots, experimental sounds, still life shots etc) ?
That question makes me laugh! I’m happy and a little surprised, strangely enough, that you perceive sexuality in this film! Yes, indeed, my work oscillates between the obvious and the subtle. It’s a rhythm that animates me and motivates me to produce my own universe. I am currently studying sexology with the goal of becoming a clinician in this field. The notion of intimacy has coloured my work from the beginning. Before, I worked more on family intimacy but now, it is more about love intimacy.
According to my personal symbolism, the planes of nature (or still life) are linked to a form of inner freedom. Water definitely symbolizes the unconscious, which is associated with the Moon. Rocks serve as solid territory, a psychic house or a kind of mental equilibrium. The film is based on a work of symbolic associations and its structure, the order in which the images appear, is crucial, it is like its skeleton. As I said before, the monochromatic shots are fields of absence, empty, colored. I wanted the film to circulate in undulating movements, with a lot of distance between each wave. It is a film that “breathes”, it embodies breathing. It’s much easier for me to explain myself in the form of images. Normally, I could make gestures in front of you to explain and it would be more understandable.
Special dark glass somewhere expresses itself in freedom, detachment, unpredictability. It is the exploration and learning of a new sexuality, one that does not belong to the conventional models of monogamy. And the music emphasizes mystery, eroticism and discovery. The music, which I composed with my friend Gabrielle Godbout - musician and visual artist - is present to create a synesthetic effect. I am sensitive in a different way through visual, chromatic and sound stimuli…my synesthesia gives me sensations that are close to sexual orgasm and I think this is what I am trying to convey, in part, to the people watching this film.