Monday, October 8, 2012

Time Out: Instantiating the Multiple

The film begins with a phone call. Vincent is phoned by his wife, Muriel and so it all begins.  This moment is met by the simultaneous arrival of a bus full of children.  Something unfolds into another: the  multiplicity of the public space. Vincent's actions are always witnessed by others, a public that forces himself to save face despite his intentions, intentions that seem to always shift at the moment of exchange. When Vincent gives his son a 500 franc note, it seems as if he was just about to discipline or repudiate him for not participating in the family affair of shopping.  It is quite difficult to tell here what his intentions are because they shift so rapidly beneath Aurelien Recoing's benevolent grinning. Humor goes away quickly His intentions only seem to become clear when the transaction is announced and witnessed by his wife from the hallway, a moment that interrupts their privacy and removes us temporarily from what was just between Julian and I.  There is something odd about the delivery of the line, "Just hanging out", where his tone seems unclear as he reaches for his wallet.  That empty time of Julien hanging out with his friends can be filled by the multiple present. There is plenty to be said about the family trip to the store...A scene which ends with a shocking ellipses as Jeffrey and Vincent's daughter's wear identical jackets.  For Vincent the stakes of the familiar are not only multiple but inescapable;the size of his family assure him of this.  The shifting we that is always already there

Let us not forget that Vincent is also scheming, and blending into the crowd as much as he is trying to seemingly remove himself. The office he is kicked out of, the parking lot--these are not public spaces. I don't know if he's really trying to remove himself. It doesn't matter.  What is the value of 200,000 francs in US currency?  He witnesses and is witnessed. He moves and flows within a massive moving and flowing.  Like when he chases/races the train until he comes to an impasse and his emotional foray must cease.  I like to look out of windows on trains and think that people in cars are looking back at me and trying to catch me.  Or even better I like to chase trains in private and imagine people in the trains looking at me.  It is a wonderful spontaneous moment.



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A note about formalism and plane in the film. It seems as if the instances of curve recall themselves.
Vincent is almost always smiling, the transactions always appear upon the curve-be it the edge of a cliff, the elliptical hallways of the office building or his benevolent face. This movie is set on the road and implies movement, perhaps you misinterpret, it is not my lips moving. The road winds and we are constantly arriving at something, we are constantly walking into something, chasing a train and smiling

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