Les mains

It's amazing what you can say with your hands. Mostly with one's own, although it is with those of others that Christophe Loizillon tells us about the strange relationship we have with this part of our body to which we have the most direct and probably the most frequent visual access.

This visual link to our hands does not ensure that we control them, and they even tend to betray: our age, our social background, our gender or the one we prefer, our origins... The hands reveal everything, almost. The five characters in this short film tell the rest of what their hands have experienced: separations, bereavements, work, family history, the passing of time.

We say of a person who gesticulates while expressing him or herself that he or she speaks with their hands. But in this film made of fixed shots, the tight frame on the hands forces the characters to an economy of gestures. This sober device, without being harsh, gives rise to a chiseled and complex speech that reminds us that our relationship to the world is also, very much, through our hands.

Emanuel Licha
Filmmaker and teacher