Entre elle et moi

Entre elle et moi (1992) is a film of mourning that delves into the artistic practice of the filmmaker's mother, the jeweler Madeleine Dansereau, just one year after her passing. The filmmaker returns to the voice-over which, already in One day... (1967), carved out a space for inner discourse and the very possibility of measuring the weight of one's own thoughts. The task of storytelling is now placed upon the past, as the newfound awareness opened by the mother's death forms a unique mirror from which to meditate on the time we have lived through. By revisiting her mother's journey and subtly reflecting on her own, the filmmaker embarks on one of the early retroactive gestures that will characterize her later films.

It wasn't until the age of 47 that Madeleine Dansereau learned the trade of a jeweller, in the wake of recurrent cancers that propelled her towards concentration, labor, and the creation of objects aimed at "adorning the body." However, this act of "adorning the body," as portrayed by Dansereau's daughter through the arrangement of images, is as much about revealing the body's parts as it is about protecting it and responding to the illnesses affecting the stomach and breasts. It also echoes the procedural dimension of all the "doings" that emerge in this co-biographical film. Technical gestures are unfolded and interwoven, forming zones of resistance and reflective parallels between the practices of the daughter and the mother: developing a photograph, arranging images, narrating trajectories; shaping, polishing, welding, casting metal. The numerous shots of hands at work allow us to measure the small metaphorical implications of concrete acts. Implicitly, comparisons are made, gestures in front of and behind the camera are assessed. The patience involved in metalwork, with its multiple stages, relates to the handling of old images and the act of editing; the three-dimensionality, tactility, and spatiality of the jewel prompt reflections on the liquidity and solidity of the lifetime manipulated to create cinematic time. It is about "adorning the body," it is about "shaping oneself." It is about continuing to make films by adapting technically and entrusting a certain blind confidence, a certain pursuit of strength, to artisanal labor.

Maude Trottier
Editor-in-Chief, Hors champ magazine