Une fleur à la bouche

Synopsis

The first act of this diptych is an observational documentary of the hustle and bustle at the world’s largest flower market, where humans are mere cogs in the machine, utterly detached from the forms of nature they handle as part of a mechanical process on an infinite production line. The second act freely adapts a Luigi Pirandello play about time running out and how to live through the days that remain: as dusk falls in the city, a poet, fortune teller or prophet with a melancholic air wanders the streets in silence, observing his surroundings until he encounters a stranger in a bar by the railway station. Claire Mathon’s lucid cinematography creates a series of objective and distant yet also probing and highly detailed images. This film was inspired by Éric Baudelaire’s installation Death Passed My Way and Stuck This Flower in My Mouth (Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, Switzerland, 2021).

Bio/Filmo

Éric Baudelaire (1973) is a Franco-American visual artist, photographer and filmmaker based in Paris. His training as a political scientist drives a sharp, socially committed streak running throughout his work. Part documentary, part essay, part art installation, his films, including Un film dramatique (2019) and Letters to Max (2014), have circulated widely in film festivals such as Locarno, Toronto and Rotterdam and been shown at exhibitions worldwide, combined with a range of other materials, formats and performances.

Claire Mathon (1975) graduated from the École nationale supérieure Louis-Lumière. She has worked as director of photography on some seventy films, including three directed by Baudelaire, as well as hits in Spain such as L’Inconnu du lac (Alain Guiraudie, 2013), Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (Céline Sciamma, 2019; winner of the Lumières, César and Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards) and Enquête sur un scandale d'état (Thierry de Peretti, 2021; winner of FIAPF Jury Prize for Best Cinematography). Most recently, she shot Saint Omer, which is competing in this year’s official sections at l’Alternativa.