Artavazd Pelechian, URSS, 1972, Les Films Sans Frontières
Comment
This sequence is one of the mini-stories that punctuate and weave through A Péléchian’s documentary: The seasons. Men, animals and lorries have to cross a tunnel. How can we account for the variety of sensations that will pass through them? At the beginning of the extract, the camera takes place in the middle of the herd, it accompanies the swaying of the animals, and the men perched on their horses who try to gather them. Soon the animals appear as a tight, moving mass that fills the screen. The line of sheep moves towards the black mouth of the tunnel in the depth of the field. Once inside, the structure of the images and how they are shared with us changes radically: the editing speeds up, in the darkness, men and animals are reduced to indistinct forms, caught in the same flow, all perspective has disappeared for them, as for the viewer who no longer has any reference points.
The herd of men and beasts cross the screen erratically, from left to right, then from right to left, as if disoriented. The uncertain light, the flashes of car headlights, combined with a cacophonous soundtrack in which the cries of men and animals and the sound of horns are amplified by the echo of the underground, contribute to making this trying experience palpable. The anxiety, the panic, the sense of urgency are not abstract, they are made physically perceptible by the viewer through the precipitous sound of a hoof, the rubbing of animals bumping into each other and the neighing of a horse nervously pulling on its bit and making it snap. The images tremble and repeat themselves, the human figures seem to be frozen in powerless statues. The image of light at the end of the tunnel, in the depth of the shot, and the return of perspective announce the end of the ordeal. The rhythm slows down, the men find a silhouette and a face on which relief can be read. Music comes back in at this moment, accompanying a slow, skyward, camera movement, then a return to the ordered herd, in full light, as if to underline the rediscovered harmony of men and animals.
Comment
This sequence is one of the mini-stories that punctuate and weave through A Péléchian’s documentary: The seasons. Men, animals and lorries have to cross a tunnel. How can we account for the variety of sensations that will pass through them? At the beginning of the extract, the camera takes place in the middle of the herd, it accompanies the swaying of the animals, and the men perched on their horses who try to gather them. Soon the animals appear as a tight, moving mass that fills the screen. The line of sheep moves towards the black mouth of the tunnel in the depth of the field. Once inside, the structure of the images and how they are shared with us changes radically: the editing speeds up, in the darkness, men and animals are reduced to indistinct forms, caught in the same flow, all perspective has disappeared for them, as for the viewer who no longer has any reference points.
The herd of men and beasts cross the screen erratically, from left to right, then from right to left, as if disoriented. The uncertain light, the flashes of car headlights, combined with a cacophonous soundtrack in which the cries of men and animals and the sound of horns are amplified by the echo of the underground, contribute to making this trying experience palpable. The anxiety, the panic, the sense of urgency are not abstract, they are made physically perceptible by the viewer through the precipitous sound of a hoof, the rubbing of animals bumping into each other and the neighing of a horse nervously pulling on its bit and making it snap. The images tremble and repeat themselves, the human figures seem to be frozen in powerless statues. The image of light at the end of the tunnel, in the depth of the shot, and the return of perspective announce the end of the ordeal. The rhythm slows down, the men find a silhouette and a face on which relief can be read. Music comes back in at this moment, accompanying a slow, skyward, camera movement, then a return to the ordered herd, in full light, as if to underline the rediscovered harmony of men and animals.