Review: D’ici là
- Sarah Leonor captures the imperceptible while seeking out the essence of nature and human beings in a varied, singular and mesmerising triptych
"There are even times when I wonder whether I’m really awake or if I’m dreaming. I feel good, I float around, I never get bored, there’s always something to look at, everything is alive and inhabited, even stones have their own lives." The Bruche valley forest in the Vosges mountains is the setting of Sarah Leonor’s new film, D’ici là, which is a subtle and penetrating work recently unveiled in competition in the 79th Locarno Film Festival (where the French filmmaker was unearthed in 2009 via A Real Life). It’s a feature film in three parts, across three seasons (autumn, winter and spring), offering up three snapshots of the lives of three characters who seem unrelated but who the director intricately links together by way of a fourth omnipresent protagonist: the countryside, which is an incarnation of the paradoxes surrounding the timelessness and ephemeral nature of living things.
"A gust of wind. The breeze among the pines. Cool down the unsheathed blade." The first character is Lucien (Frank Beauvais) who’s been isolated in the forest for five weeks, fleeing human society in search of "a good reason to get up in the mornings." He’s a modern-day Robinson Crusoe who, when visited unexpectedly by his friend Laura (Laetitia Dosch), who’s trying to bring him back to civilisation, only withdraws further and further into the wooded heights.
"I raise my head. How calm it is, The tree that I’m cutting down." The second protagonist is Aline (Dinara Drukarova), a researcher hunting a mysterious wolf which she’s trying to track using camera traps (on which Lucien surreptitiously appears). But this single woman whose lover has left for a work assignment in Africa is primarily wrestling with the turmoil caused by some incredibly worrying news about her health…
"It’s my inner lake. In the shadow prowls A black tiger." The third figure is Jade (Louiza Aura), who’s coming out of adolescence and teetering on the threshold of the future, debating whether to leave the region and her mother, respond to the physical advances of her boyfriend (Dimitri Doré) and maybe lift the veil on various secrets (while furtively crossing paths with Lucien and Aline)…
In an assured style seamlessly blending fiction and documentary (the construction of a cabin, photographic surveys, the farmer Louis, etc.), D’ici là skilfully orchestrates surprises (such as the hunting tower open air "cinema" or the afore-mentioned haikus which divide the story into chapters) to tell a realist tale with echoes of fairy tales, family stories and airs of enchantments which wind deeper and deeper into the wintery night, not to mention a little hypnosis and flirtation with a previous life. All of which is directed with understated elegance, showcasing excellent work on the seasons by director of photography Laurent Desmet.
What ultimately emerges is a wonderful journey in three parts towards some kind of rebirth exploring questions around the meaning of life, predators and prey, the dead and the living, love and friendship and imprisonment and freedom with crystal-clear simplicity (sometimes reminiscent of Kelly Reichardt). It’s a work under the auspices of sovereign nature which is crafted with an arthouse budget and which clearly demonstrates the breadth of Sarah Leonor’s filmmaking talent.
D’ici là was produced by Les Films Hatari and Sésame Films, with Manuel Cam and Studio Orlando as associate producers.
(Translated from French)
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