The Long Wail of a Passing Train Slips into the Heart of the Ghosts and Everything Explodes into Silence

Behind this long, evocative title - one of Quebec cinema's most beautiful - lies one of the keys to Anne-Marie Bouchard's meditative work. With no commas and no pauses, it can be read in a single breath, like a mantra or a prayer. A true explorer, Bouchard challenges herself with each new project, in part to observe its impact on her work, in the same way that a laboratory researcher adds a variable to each new trial. Here, a single, uninterrupted sound recording forms the basis of the work. Filmed, processed and drawn images are then added. This train, always moving forward on the rails at a precise pace, is basically a figure similar to 16mm film with its perforations, embracing the projector and producing cinema. This constant movement lulls and fascinates us, comforting us in a way. Like the train, the cinema takes us on a journey.

Then everything explodes into silence, an oxymoron in the real world, but a powerful symbol in the dream world. While observation of the world is at the heart of this filmmaker's approach, poetry is never far away. After all, it’s part of it.

Paul Landriau
Director of Programming
Festival de cinéma de la ville de Québec