Shown in Compétition #5.
Synopsis
When advertising, big brands and the commercial market bombard us… Escape? revolt? get involved? become outraged?
Text from the selection committee
Faithful to his aesthetics of the fragment, of the torn and recontextualized image flap as practiced in his Lettrist period (1980-1995) and then in his autobiographical vein (the K series, 2001-2008), Frédérique Devaux plunges into her image chutes and extracts from them shreds of cities savagely assaulted by advertisements of all kinds (brand images, various visual assaults, international alphabets at the service of Capital) to give us a brief visual pamphlet on the loss of all landmarks in lands of savage and omnipresent capitalism. Streets, individuals, buildings are ravaged and deformed by this graphic plague. This time, Devaux uses digital technology directly, subjecting it to the same disruptions as film in the past. A visual shock.
Translation made by the translator www.DeepL.com/Translator
– R.B.
What is the starting point for your film?
The malaise and the inadequacy of my life to contemporary society, as well as the wish that one day I may lead a just and peaceful existence. By contemporary society, I mean it’s mercantile and consumerist character, and whose liberal expansion is only growing day by day. And because I live many months of the year in Algeria. Being binational, I am half French and half Algerian. I can no longer bear the injustices here and there. So I filmed the hirak, the revolt of an entire people, which was more than justified in my eyes.
Capital(ism)e then shows how we are assailed daily by advertising, brands, consortiums, the ultra-rapid evolution of software, products of all kinds, and to what extent populations find themselves alienated by this movement. We can no longer breathe or meditate, we no longer know how to react, except to lock ourselves in airtight boxes.
How long did it take to make your film?
I couldn’t work continuously on it, I think I spent about two weeks on it, not counting the preparation beforehand (research of the dailies, sounds, digitalization, etc…).