Synopsis
After the death of Renaud, her boyfriend, Armelle can't possibly take him out of her mind. Her sister advises her to see a medium, in whose house she meets a boy who strangely looks like Renaud...
2005 ‘À travers la forêt’ Directed by Jean-Paul Civeyrac
After the death of Renaud, her boyfriend, Armelle can't possibly take him out of her mind. Her sister advises her to see a medium, in whose house she meets a boy who strangely looks like Renaud...
21st century anxieties translated into a musical-ghost story... that it’s done in only ten shots puts the rest of us filmmakers to shame
Now this is what I’m talking about. Very much in the same vein as Civeyrac‘s Fantômes - they’re both stylistically oppressive, opaque, supernatural expressions centered on grief - but this one feels way more focused and while indulgently stylized, he takes full advantage of his unique capabilities and delivers such a profoundly effective story without overstaying its welcome. Hell, it might be too short, I wanted more. This is so captivatingly haunting. Also like Fantômes, he’s fully honed in with that indulgent, 21st century millennial feeling of uncertainty mixed with an unhealthy obsession with the past - done in the most unsettling and bewildering way possible.
Completely in that brand of Claire Denis/Lynne Ramsay/Olivier Assayas/Philippe Grandrieux type of filmmaking that absolutely isn’t for everyone, but I can’t get enough of. This would make a sick double feature with Personal Shopper.
A nearly perfect film. It neither exceeds nor disappoints itself at any moment in its tight one-hour runtime. Floating cameras pan through thick, delerious, interior spaces. Every frame is filled with fragments – lateral flesh under gravity – little servings of a whole left up to you to complete. It's an experience more akin to dreaming, or tripping, than movie-watching, though this is Civeyrac's most grounded film at the time.
Armelle is a young Parisian Millennial grieving in the wake of her boyfriend's accidental death. She has been visited at night by something, a vision, a dream, or some reincarnation of Renaud himself. We're treated to one of these intoxicating experiences right away. Her two sisters counsel her from opposing…
The sudden tone shift in the opening scene makes me stand at attention every time. Perfect film.
After love and memory Civeyrac films the ethereal as his tone is light enough to carry the melancholy in rooms, the dreamscape of the color blue; here accentuating the super natural liberates the many emotions and desires available to us all, the film is a transplant of our dreams. Youthful dreams...
Moving symmetry.
The coordination and rhythm of bodies that either enter or exit this thin strip of light is rather remarkable. So soft, tender yet, the amount of gray that stands against each character instills a melancholic, as well as mysterious haze that travels throughout the entire film.
Thunder lingers.
“The sun is for the Earth, the keystone, the reservoir, the wellspring. This is why morning and spring are delights, why twilight and autumn are deaths.”
Nine uninterrupted shots. All breathy and entrancing. Similar to a waltz I have yet to personally encounter.
Forming into an outline of a black dog, sitting in the corner of my room, waiting patiently. For what, I don’t believe I’ll ever know.
I am frozen in delight.
This may certainly be a new favorite.
To toy with life this elegantly is a masterful feat.
The ellipses in the first five minutes creates such an astounding shift it took my breath away. After the ellipses it is just a void that everything else hangs on. Grief as the ghost story it is. The score is as beautiful as it is unsettling. Céline Bozon can shoot a picture. One of the best in the business. This is by far the most visually striking Civeyrac I’ve watched to date. Through the Forest is short, succinct and powerful. A horror movie, when the horror is that part which has been lost.
Sorta kinda answers the question ‘what if Phillippe Garrel made a Kiyoshi Kurosawa movie?’
Think about Personal Shopper. Think about Kiyoshi Kurosawa's films. 60 minutes, 10 shots, different genres. Struggle to approve lost of person you loved. Reality switching to dream. Haunting and surreal.
A Racine inspired meditation on the boundaries between physicality and sensuality, memory and desire, dreams and reality. Lyrical and haunting, it marries Malickian naturalism with Cocteau-like surrealism.