Dear Shaded Viewers,
Many of you might be longing for the sun, water and cheerfulness in these dark winter days. Fortunately a short movie might cheer you up : La couleur du chlore (Color of Chlorine) by Clement Dezelus, a young director who cheered up the latest Chéris-Chéries Festival last November. The story is about Brahim an aspiring musician, who falls in love with Ulysse a tormented young man, but in a neat and ghostly house in the heights of the french Rivera.
Clément Dezelus is a young director, a stark tall impressive man with a sharp smile. He knows what he’s doing, he knows where he wants to go and each of his decisions is leading to an artistic blossom. He started his career as an illustrator. Then, he evolved to photography and video art.He developed a transparent yet dark aesthetic. His favourite motifs are American buildings or houses where the perspective is endless. His signature windows are sharp, opening on anxious neon coloured sky. His visual work evokes the world where he evolved during the beginning of his career: splendour and misery. He knows very well the world of collectors, businessmen that want so much to have a work for their party, but « stay in the kitchen before, right ».The south of France is not anymore an eternal holiday landscape, but a gruesome theatre flooded with light. He’s doesn’t hide the pretence of social classes and gives big hints in his scenario that love might be an escape in that beautiful yet cruel land. Rich and poor are playing their destiny with each of their decisions. How can love grow?
Well, it continued with painting! Clement got inspired by Hockney paintings. The 2017 Centre Pompidou exhibition was a revelation. They are bright, yet superficial. Mood boards and a recurring motive are a good path to work , however things are more interesting! By consistent negotiations he got the opportunity to shoot in this propriety. This house, almost coming out his paintings, seemed like Kismet. Surprisingly, Clement confesses that several bad omens happened there.Against all odds it delivered haunting scenes and heavy movements. Clement managed to build a mental space that is the essence of cinema. There’s no importance to what’s real or not, but how the destiny of those two boys will unfold. Actually, we are admiring a pas de deux that Ryan Daoudi and Nemo Schiffman are giving with a rare maestria . They are insanely gorgeous, raw presences who change the atmosphere by just raising a hand. Nemo in drapes is striking like a Caroline de Vivaise silhouette. Just like in the Chereau’s staging, it turns the silhouette defenceless . Ryan’s shot lying on his stomach is an allusion to the luscious California of David Hockney’s youth. The deep hot colours are a contemporary academic image. Viewers are spellbound even if LGBT movies are not their first choice.
The writing of the scenario is one of the key points of the movie. It’s the real tour de force of Clement. He’s fully aware that his creations are about desire. Even if the lead actors have a magnetic presence he wrote the scenario with integrity. Being an openly gay man, it was important not to lose his mind. He had the clear intention to write a love story and not a sex movie where the actors could become his muse, or more offscreen… The two men are exploring their desire, body and soul. They delivered a speechless performance. Their are no predictable gestures or stilted phrasing. They are nagging, erratic, then finally tender to each other. They have a spontaneous chemistry on the screen, with the slight clumsiness, and softness of a nascent love. Daoudi is radiating with joy, Schiffman is touching by his sensitivity. The Direction of the actors is spontaneous. The film is constructed with cheerfulness with a constant back and forth of real life. Clement included the natural personality of the actors in the scenario.
On another level, he also wrote every step coming out of the characters. However, it appeared that few indications could be more revealing of their struggles. Those suggestions were given by Anaïs Bertrand, the founder of his producing house Insolence films which closely helps young creators launching their movies and developing their other passions such as visual arts. Jean Baptiste Durand helped find the dynamic, the positions which launched dialogues on camera. Interactions are seamless, dialogues can have multiple meanings and they decide to live their passion while they are torn in their current life.
In the prime of his career, Clement developed a consequent dramaturgy announcing his era. He masters the use of lights and colours to bring out the inner turmoil of their minds. His sharp environments will be the theatre of high stake drama. In the famous essay about Francis Bacon Logic of Sensation, Deleuze explained that his figures are not gruesome, they are so defined, so geometrical, so flesh like that they reveal the mental and physical forces that pressures the body. Clement achieved his entry into cinema and will take our breath with his upcoming projects. The movie is on Canal+ VOD’s platform. Let’s hope that the cast will be acclaimed in the festival this year
Later,
Mael Heinz
