A Lake (Un Lac)

Philippe Grandrieux

France 2008 | 90 min | 35 mm | colour | Mandrake Films
French version, Czech and English subtitles

Archetypal story of forbidden love involving incest is shown as hallucinative journey to subconsciousness using only minimum of dialogues. Featuring Natálie Řehořová as one of the main female characters.

French experimental artist Philippe Grandrieux located his third full length movie in an indefinite snowy landscape by the lake circled by deep forests. All characters are surrounded by dreary and freezing nature, especially Alexi, suffering from epileptic fits and too close relationship with his sister Hege. Unspoken tragedy is noticed by their blind mother, strict father and little brother who live in the middle of nowhere in a cottage by the lake. In this minimalist movie neither psychology nor morals matter; more likely it is a succession of archetypal emotions. Film concentrates on the physicality of body, objects and landscape which are almost touched by expressive camera movements. Grandrieux’s film is not uniquely dark per se – more likely evokes nightly romantic moods of a pilgrim wandering through deserted landscape. The Lake shows how is possible to meditate without using psychological clichés.

www.grandrieux.com