Jean-Bernard Guillard

Quote:
Ombres chinoises was produced for the French TV magazine Juste une Image, a monthly show which in its almost three years of production cataloged all kinds of visual experimentations: from Muybridge to the latest computer animation of the New York Institute of Technology. I.N.A. asked for Ruiz’s participation for the April 1982 show. He decided to produce Ombres Chinoises (probably a project that was wandering in his mind long before), a catalog of dramatic situations acted out by Chinese shadows with voice-over narrations (depositio: actually, as Torrent notes below, these are only voiceovers in the technical sense. The “tragic situations” are represented through shadow, puppetry, and dialog not narration). Nothing comes closer to the Ruizian aesthetics. After the first dramatic situation, titled “enigma,” a panel reads:Read More »

The narrator, an Arab immigrant of about 35, H., is a projectionist in an old cinema. One day, attracted by the music, he looks through the skylight and is fascinated by what he sees: the dancer in the film seems to be staring straight at him. He falls in love with her, but the vision lasts only a moment and the young woman never appears again. Shortly afterwards, an old man bursts into the cabin claiming to be his uncle. H. wants to prepare a meal for him and grabs a bottle of oil. On the label he finds the image of the dancer. A free adaptation of The Blind Owl by Sadegh Hedayat and The Condemned for Lack of Faith by Tirso de Molina.Read More »

Synopsis:
‘A lush, baroque adaptation of Jean Racine’s 1670 tragedy about a Roman emperor who bends to popular will and declines to marry the Palestinian queen he loves.’
– IMDbRead More »