Jours en fleurs
_Jours en fleurs_ is a reclamation of flower-power that celebrates both the fertile and the fierce forces of nature, reinventing their relationship to the feminine. Images of flowering trees soaked in menstrual blood for several months undergo a gestation of decay, whose visceral ravages give rise to a beauty that is at once dark and luminous, endowing them with the Baudelairean “formless and multifaceted” splendor of “monstrous flowers.” The title is inspired by an Acadian expression used by young women to refer to their menstrual periods.
| Director | Louise Bourque |
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Before meeting Louise, I had heard about the myth surrounding the creation of her film Jours en fleurs. A master of experimental imagery, she offers us here imagery that could not be more organic: images of flowers altered by her own menstrual blood. The first thing that comes to mind when watching this film is feeling the life force that inhabits Louise, which we find expressed through these images. Over the course of our long friendship, I have discovered in her this incredible ability to make poetic the elements that make up her daily life and have been part of her life. I believe this work, within her filmography, pushes the connection between materiality and concept the furthest. Blood incubating film stock with images of spring flowers to make them bloom again—it is both beautiful and daring!
Here are some creative choices Louise made for Jours en fleurs that I find excellent and fascinating with each viewing:
• She replaces her famous chemical toning techniques with a natural toning.
• She brings her own physicality beyond the gesture of the hand, altering the image with her body without touching the film.
• She engraves her credits onto the emulsion. I love that the work is literally signed by the artist’s hand.
• She runs the images with such a fluid and ghostly motion. Combined with the immersive sound design, we become a fragment of a walk in the forest, accompanied by the birdsong.
Guillaume Vallée
Experimental filmmaker and video artist
-
English
5 mn
Language: English
- Année 2003
- Pays Quebec
- Durée 5
- Producteur Louise Bourque
- Langue Without dialogue
- Résumé court A bold film celebrating the fertile and the fierce, reimagining femininity as an all‑powerful force capable of creation and destruction.
- TLF_Applismb_CA 1
- Date édito CA 2025-11-28
Before meeting Louise, I had heard about the myth surrounding the creation of her film Jours en fleurs. A master of experimental imagery, she offers us here imagery that could not be more organic: images of flowers altered by her own menstrual blood. The first thing that comes to mind when watching this film is feeling the life force that inhabits Louise, which we find expressed through these images. Over the course of our long friendship, I have discovered in her this incredible ability to make poetic the elements that make up her daily life and have been part of her life. I believe this work, within her filmography, pushes the connection between materiality and concept the furthest. Blood incubating film stock with images of spring flowers to make them bloom again—it is both beautiful and daring!
Here are some creative choices Louise made for Jours en fleurs that I find excellent and fascinating with each viewing:
• She replaces her famous chemical toning techniques with a natural toning.
• She brings her own physicality beyond the gesture of the hand, altering the image with her body without touching the film.
• She engraves her credits onto the emulsion. I love that the work is literally signed by the artist’s hand.
• She runs the images with such a fluid and ghostly motion. Combined with the immersive sound design, we become a fragment of a walk in the forest, accompanied by the birdsong.
Guillaume Vallée
Experimental filmmaker and video artist
-
English
Duration: 5 minutesLanguage: English5 mn
- Année 2003
- Pays Quebec
- Durée 5
- Producteur Louise Bourque
- Langue Without dialogue
- Résumé court A bold film celebrating the fertile and the fierce, reimagining femininity as an all‑powerful force capable of creation and destruction.
- TLF_Applismb_CA 1
- Date édito CA 2025-11-28
