NUIT NOIRE

       As if it wasn’t obvious enough from the posts themselves, let me plainly state that I don’t really consider this blog a forum for “film criticism”. While I’ve read my fair share of Bazin and Kracauer, there are other online sites (a few of which you’ll find in the links sidebar to your right) that do a fine job of "critiquing"; better than I could, even if I were inclined to do so. That being said, the subject of this week’s post immediately brought to mind my favorite volume of scholarly cinematic lore -- Bruce Kawin’s Mindscreen. Kawin’s theories are a little difficult to summarize, but they basically boil down to the idea that some films (some of Bergman’s, like Persona, for example; almost everything by Godard; but also some less elitist fare, like Duck Amuck), present themselves to the viewer, not as a “story”; related to us as a second or third-hand account of events; but rather as a first-person representation of a mind -- as if we had a mirror held up to the consciousness, not of the filmmaker -- but of the film itself. Mind you, only certain films benefit from being regarded in this manner; but speaking for myself I can see no other way, to interpret -- or even appreciate -- a film like this week’s object of inquiry: Nuit Noire (”Black Night “).


       Nuit Noire concerns one Oscar, an entomologist at a Natural History Museum who spends his days cataloging insects. I use the word “days” figuratively here, as the film takes place in a setting where the sun shines for, at most, a few minutes -- sometimes just a few seconds -- every 24 hours. Oscar sees a therapist to deal with some troubling issues from his childhood; issues which seem to revolve around the death of a sibling (or childhood friend, perhaps?), whilst on a family outing in Africa -- although the nature of said incident is never explicitly made clear. A female museum attendant of African descent insists to Oscar that she is his sister, and one evening he arrives home to find her in his apartment, in his bed -- and ill. Fearing for her life -- and scandal -- if he attempts to move her, Oscar reluctantly allows her to stay. And that’s as much as you need know.


       The synopsis given above is a very much truncated -- and quite frankly, streamlined for purposes of clarity -- summary of the events which play out in the first third of the film. Nuit Noire is more a series of episodes that revolve around a theme (or a couple of themes, I suppose) than a traditional 3-act movie playlet. The film contains flashbacks, flash-forwards, scenes that take place only in the mind of the protagonist, and other scenes, I suspect, that only take place in the “mind” of the film itself. Like Lynch’s I N L A N D    E M P I R E, Nuit Noire isn’t really designed to be grasped on a rational level; it’s of the same genus as the work of the early surrealist filmmakers -- a kind of cinema where you’re given no answers, but the questions are so beautifully and compellingly presented, you can’t help but be mesmerized by them.


       Nuit Noire is the first feature-length film from Belgian artist Olivier Smolders. While it is available on DVD, It has, in fact never received an official theatrical release here in the U.S. -- partly because, I’m certain, it’s not really a “film”, at all. The movie was shot in HD; and rather than a murky, grainy “look” to it (as you might expect, given the dark subject matter of the piece), it has a vibrant, colorful, crisp aspect and feel to it; something I’ve come to expect -- and even look forward to -- from the many shot-on-HD movies that have been released in the last couple of years.

Some links:

The official website for the movie.

A trailer for a collection of short films by Olivier Smolders: Spiritual Exercises.


Next post -- 02/15/08