A film by Frank Beauvais
2019 | 75 minutes | Color/B&W | in French with English Subs

Frank Beauvais’s intimate essay film assembles excerpts from the 400-plus films the French director watched over a four-month period of seclusion in 2016. On the soundtrack, Beauvais speaks of the breakup that led to his retreat, the estranged father with whom he bonded over cinema just before his death, and the symptoms of our current cultural climate that make pressing on an act of resistance. Beauvais’s montage—composed of both international classics and obscurities—alights upon small but specific details, reframing otherwise incidental images into an indelible and immensely moving reflection on life, love, and loss.

"Beguiling and mesmerizing…A highly original and personal movie memoir.”
—Hollywood Reporter

“A masterful example of ‘pillage’ and editing. There is real genius in Beauvais’ ability to craft a film which is ‘personal’ in the full sense of the word. A fascinating work.”
– Fabien Lemercier, Cineuropa

“A gift to cinephiles, all at once embodying, criticizing and transcending an unhealthy mode of passive interaction with life. (The film) exhibits the best kind of aesthetic innovation.”
–—Joe Blessing, The Playlist

“Almost painfully moving. A devastating memoir made of movie clips… Extraordinary.
—Daniel Kasman, MUBI

“This profusion of heterogeneous images amounts to a Burroughsian visual orgasm. Proves that the healing power of images is not just a theoretical assertion. This film will save you a couple of psycho-analytical sessions.”
—Cedric Succivalli, International Cinephile Society

“The pairings are associative; the images beguiling, fleeting and unceasing. Intimate prose (that) is sharp and poetic. Hypersonal, hermetic, confessional and global. Captures, unlike any work I’ve seen, the anxiety of our current era.”
—Sierra Pettengill, Filmmaker Magazine