“You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait. Do not even wait, be quiet still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet” Franz Kafka
Short film commissioned by the Cinemathèque Suisse to celebrate Jean-Marie Straub’s 85th birthday.
L'Appel de la forêt follows the call of nature, but, as it is always the case with Jean-Claude Rousseau, in the form of an image. At first glance we see a green wall and a door-frame next to it. After a second glance the disturbing aspect of the scene crystallizes: A small, differently colored rectangle draws attention to the fact that a picture has been removed from the left-hand side of the wall, while such a picture can still be seen at the right-hand side of the wall. Then a man (Rousseau himself) enters the scene and puts the painting back into its original spot: It shows a roebuck. What follows is a carousel ride of unusual and amusing images.
Rooms must be vacated before noon on the day of departure. An extra night will be charged for all late departures." Jean-Claude Rousseau has used this banal, well-known notice as a synopsis for his film. Taken out of context, thereby rendering it mysterious, it is an ideal introduction to this letter, which consists of two shots – the front and behind of a window in a hotel in Turin – and an insert. Here, Rousseau continues to explore "basic film techniques" but in this case, he abandons super eight to film in DV, a new technique and a new quest for harmony between visuals and sounds. Jean-Pierre Rehm.
Jean-Claude Rousseau is one of the most unconventional lone fighters in French cinema. His predominantly short films deal with no less than cinema per se: space, time and movement. As abstract as each of these concepts might seem taken alone, Rousseau assigns their ultimate designation as an integral whole: A person (or no-one, for that matter) moves (or does not move) within a room (or looks into another room) for a certain amount of time.
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