belleville baby (and defenceless me...)...

 

Presented in Panorama, chapter Dokumente, of the Berlinale 2013, Belleville Baby is a project of an outstanding originality. And disputable making.

 

It all starts with a phone call between the Swedish Director Mia Engberg and her ex french lover Vincent, grand amour of her youth. Vincent reappears after years of oblivion, having been jailed.

 

This is a stringent, fascinating reflexion on the fluidity and the fading of memory, that uncatchable, unseasable "thing", that not even the two lovers were sharing in an equal measure....The starting point of a long chain of memories for both of them. Memories that appear to have a different weight according to each subjectivity...

They are meant to rebuild an unforgettable and tormenting liaison, lived in the parisian quartier of Belleville, between a normal girl, aspiring to become a videomaker, and a young criminal, inloved but irremediable...

The only images that Mia kept are those of her lover shaving, as shot by her. We are not seeing much more of the footage because their conversations are on the telephone, with the voice of an actor and literrary quotations, and also very political statements. 

Those words are a leit-motiv for a fascinating visual and a very moving experiment halfway between video-installation and personal confession. Visuals blend footage shot on Super 8, Super 16 and cell-phone video in Paris and Stockholm, or simple photographs. 

They range from the center to the extreme banlieue of Paris, from frozen swedish lakes near Stockholm to the bright sea at Marseille, and the pic of an old parrent of the director saying of a lost love story from forgotten times...

 

 

Framed by Engberg's recounting of the myth of Orpheus, the dialogue track alternates between her diary-like voiceover and what seem to be telephone conversations...

It is rather acceptable, morally,  that an author tells such an intimate story (including names of the familly and so on), but by the end of the film this very autor elluded a total opening to the public when presenting the movie in person at the Berlinale...

 In reality, the true passion, or even the deep obsession of the director (and painfully of a few sensitive spectators) could be the concept of memory. In as such as her romanticized recollections attempt the possibility of rendering eternal, memories otherwise destined to diminish with the passing of time.... 

Dreamlike editing and Michel Wenzer's evocative score support the ambience.

This is a very personal and troubling film, built on constant subjectivity, telling of how one's self at each moment is affected by hidden memories and elusive inner layers... with echoes from Marguerite Duras and with wide reverberations into our own "vecu"...
 

Ames sensibles s'abstenir...

gd

 

 

 

 

A long distance call from a long lost lover makes her reminisce about their common past.
She remembers the spring when they met in Paris, the riots, the vespa and the cat named Baby.
A film about love, time and things that got lost along the way.

Directed and written by Mia Engberg
Produced by Tobias Janson
Music and dramaturgy: Michel Wenzer
Supervisor: Kalle Boman
Voice of Vincent: Olivier Desautel
First Assistant Director: Åsa Sandzén
Stills: Christian Demare
Sound design: Jan Alvermark
Sound mix: Jan Alvermark and Owe Svensson
Camera and editing: Mia Engberg
Additional Camera: Albin Biblom and Ewa Cederstam
Graphic Art: Jacob Frössén
Casting: Elsa Pharaon, Anne Agbadou-Masson, Catarina Ramstedt
Production Assistants: Jeroen Pool, Sophie Vukovic, Tim Dahlberg
Grading: Martin Steinberg
Online: Rickard Petersen
Conform and Mastering: Mattias Olsson
Super8 scanner: Nordisk Film Post Production
Made with support from: Swedish Film Institute, Tove Torbiörnsson, Suzanne Glansborg, MEDIA Plus Slate Funding, Konstnärsnämnden, Centre Culturel Suédois
In Co-production with: Sveriges Television, Ingemar Persson