dance girl dance

8/16/2019 Dance Girl Dance

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Dance girl dance

Philippe Grandrieux's

La Vie nouvelle

(The New Life, 2002)

In this eloquent discussion (and passionate defense) of Grandrieux's second feature,

Adrian Martin examines the controversial rench filmma!er's "pun!#$adean vie% of

the human animal and crum&ling social structures"*

$ince its premiere screenings in late 2002, Philippe Grandrieux's second feature La Vie

nouvelle (The New Life) has &een a cause célèbre +n its theatrical release in rance, it

%as savaged & a large num&er of prominent ne%spaper and maga-ine revie%ers .ut

the film has man passionate defenders, %hose responses have &een collected in /icole

.rene-'s forthcoming &oo! La Vie nouvelle: nouvelle vision (ditions 1eo $cheer,200)

Grandrieux's %or! plunges us into ever !ind of o&scurit3 moral am&iguit, narrative

enigma, literal dar!ness La Vie Nouvelle presents four characters in a severel

depressed $ara4evo %ho are caught in a msterious, death#driven %e&3 the fec!less

5merican $emour (6ach 7nighton), his msterious companion (lover8 friend8

&rother8 father8) 9oscoe (:arc .ar&;), the demonic :afioso .oan (6solt /ag), and

the prostitute#sho%girl %ho is the exchange#to!en in all their relationships, :;lania

(5nna :ouglalis)

ric


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laered, snthesised, am&ient noises of &reath or %ind, suc!ed in and expelled, %hich

underlie the entire film and constitute its distur&ed heart&eat, returning to our ear %hen

all other sounds have disappeared In the ver &eginnings and endings of his films, over

the credits, there is nothing &ut this strangel &odil sound

5nd then there are the pulses of music and dance Grandrieux's films are severelmutated musicals Bhere is even a song delivered in a seed $ara4evo nightclu& & 5nna

:ouglalis in La Vie nouvelle, reminding us of the spaced#out performances of Isa&ella

9ossellini in David 1nch's Blue Velvet (?@AC) and 5sia 5rgento in 5&el errara's New

Rose Hotel (?@@A) Bhe dance music in Grandrieux's films is al%as driven, anguished

5 ro&otic techno &eat overlaid & pun! cries, slurs, gro%ls, murmurs Brance music, fit

for ean 9ouch's maîtres fous

.ut it is men %ho are the masters in Grandrieux's spectacles .oan in La Vie nouvelle

is lord of the dance3 &efore the disco cro%d, he pumps his fist manicall into the air

5nd more than this3 he is the marionette master :;lania is his puppet Ee !no%

alread from Sombre ho% much intensit and importance Grandrieux invests in imagesof control3 its hero, in hiding, literall %or!s Punch and ud dolls to elicit screams of

terror and ecstas from small children 5nd so much of the texture of that filmFfrom

the disquieting images of cars in ghostl, floating motion to the eerie, disem&odied

loudspea!er announcements at outdoor sports eventsFevo!es a sort of :a&usian

"remote control" of people and a dispossession of their %ills

Eomen under the influence In Grandrieux's films, %omen see! more than the ecstas

of a trance in their dancing Bhe are &eond the momentar, transcendental grace of

dance offered to assavetes#stle heroines li!e the sad ex#lover (9o&in Eright) in $ean

Penn's The Crossin !uar" (?@@H) or the &attered %ife#and#mother in Gar +ldman's

Nil B# $outh (?@@) +r rather, Grandrieux's %omen see! through that trance#dance to

escape, to violentl tear themselves out of their o%n s!ins Bo leave &ehind the

impossi&le contradictions of the intersu&4ective &ind in %hich the caught, &ought and

sold and &artered li!e slaves, li!e chattel 9ight in the heart of the %orst momentsF

%hen the are scared, drun!, drugged, on displa, menaced from all sidesF

Grandrieux's %omen dance Bhin! of the %oman semi#na!ed in the car headlights in

Sombre or, in the same film, lina 1J%ensohn hurling herself a&out to pun!#roc!a&ill

as she tries to tell her ne% &east#captor3 "I'm in danger"

Danger Grandrieux is a

filmma!er of the &od, &ut rarel thevaria&le space or interval

&et%een &odies, as in


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rituals of men greeting and drin!ing to heterosexual violation and a canni&alistic death3

&odies meet not in ecstatic a&andon &ut on fearful alert

$ise en scène Fthe art of &odies in spaceFis al%as, su&tl or overtl, a dance, &ut this

is the dance of death, the living death of everda po%er relations Bhe t%o scenes of

:;lania's prostitution, one placed directl after the other in Grandrieux's cinema ofcruelt, provide an inventor of &odil postures figuring fright, uncertaint, panic and

stress, a primal, phsical language of animals under threat3 $emour's instant post#coital

&lues, :;lania's vulnera&le na!edness, and the ic upper#&od stress of the rench

client, %ho finall %ithdra%s into himself and a%a from the +ther in order to

mastur&ate in a fu--, atomised &lur

Bhere are man %omen on stage in Grandrieux's filmsFsho%girls, grating as the

displa their sad flesh, draping themselves over men in order to solicit mone as the

ga-e at themselves vacuousl in a mirror (:;lania performs this gesture earl in La Vie

nouvelle, exactl as $emour &ecomes entranced & his fantas of her) Bhe trance or

flight offered & dance cannot happen on stage li!e this, during %or! hours

It must happen %ithin the Dionsiac confusion of a cro%d that is saturated & music and

noise, fuelled & intoxicating su&stances, as it does for the %ildl dancing %omen in

mir 7usturica's %n"erroun" (?@@H) and Blac& Cat 'hite Cat (?@@A), %omen %ho

part li!e it's ?@@@ Ket %hen does the Grandrieux heroine ever leave the stage,

completel8 Bhat is the question posed in the remar!a&le five#minute dance sequence

to%ards the end of La Vie nouvelle, shortl &efore .oan invites $emour into the

thermic inferno

Contriving paradoxes

Bhe sequence develops in stages, closel tied to the progressive laering of trac!s in the

techno music mix It &egins in silence, %ith that am&ient %ind sound soon entering, plus

a floating, chiming chord ever fe% seconds In a first phase, the sequence sho%s us

.oan caressing :;lania as if to mould her Le is the metteur en scMne and the

choreographer here, and he directs his puppet to t%irl 5s often in La Vie nouvelle,

Grandrieux cleverl contrives unusual, paradoxical effects of speed and movement,

al%as &ased on the unexpected and uncann comparison of different vectors or planes

in the image

1i!e the %oman %ho, in the opening shots, remains %ith ees %ide open %hile her

companion &lin!s furiousl (it is a fast#motion effect), or the other local inha&itants

%ho, %hile in out#of#focus close#up, later seem to glide slo%l through the da#lit

landscape on some unseen conveor &elt, here :;lania's spin is irreal3 she is clearl on

some rotating disc %e do not seeFa device pioneered & ean octeau in the credits of

La (rincesse "e Clèves (ean Delanno, ?@C?) and extended over an entire film &

:i!lNs ancsN in ) *sarno& s*+ve, ava# Boccaccio $a#arors*-on (The T#rant.s

Heart , ?@A?)Fand mean%hile the camera's o%n circular movement confounds the

spatial and perceptual paradox

.oan's hands fan, flutter, guide, caress, moc! :;lania .oan turns to his o%n dance

reverieFthis is the second phase of the sequence, devoted entirel to shots of him, as atechno &eat and a fast &ass pattern on a single note enter 1ighting and posture


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(particularl his hunched position as vie%ed from the &ac!) transform the marionette

master momentaril into a /osferatu, and images of his face resem&le a demon Bhen

(phase O) the scene reintegrates :;lania in her increasingl accelerating choreograph

B%o repeating snthesised notes, a tone apart, fill out the musical space &et%een the

&ass line and the floating chime#chords :ore techno percussion enters, capped off & a

disco high#hat cm&al :;lania's spinning reaches a fren-, a crescendo 5n inspirednoise effect has also 4oined the fra3 a %hooshing, %hip#li!e sound 5t first it seems

!eed to :;lania's t%irl, &ut almost instantl it gains a musical, sensorial autonom,

disengaged from snchronisation %ith the action

Bhe sequence, no% centring on :;lania, reaches its high point of visual defiguration

(phase ) Bhe camera sha!es so much in response to her dance that her face in close#up

is flattened, stretched, lost, found, from one frame to the next +ne can longer tell %hat

exact gestures she is performing, %here she is situated in the room, or even %here the

line of her &od ends and the surrounding environment &egins (a pictorial su&version

common in Grandrieux) If one free-es these frames of her face, arms, nec! and

shoulders, a hundred things can &e seen or hallucinated, hidden & the d;filement3 atorso, a cloud, an insect, a mas!, sexual organs

In this fur of defiguration, a miracle is performed, a magical and lrical transport Bhe

music fades, and there is onl, for a&out five seconds, the %hooshing %hip sound

:;lania seems %eightless, detached from time and space $he is freed at last .ut at a

certain moment, during this movement of her &od, there is a su&tle transitionFfrom

the reddish &ac!ground of the rehearsal room to &right lights piercing dar!ness Bhe

transportation has (although %e don't realise this immediatel) reversed its direction and

fallen &ac! to earth :;lania is no% in a nightclu& Bhe sound tells us this &efore the

image3 fade up on a cheering cro%d, and the return in full force of the techno music

Bhere is no escape for her

/o% (phase H) :;lania is again the

centre of attention %ith .oan, adored &

a cro%d Bheir dancing is intense Ehile

.oan is certain of his movements,

al%as in control, :;lania dances to get

out of herselfFan impulse conveed in

her constant violation of, and flight from,

the &orders of the compositional frame

$udden cut to a sixth and final phase3 the%ind#&reath sound is prominent, and the

music is onl a distant, muffled rum&le,

as if in an ad4acent room :;lania has passed out and is held in .oan's arms 5%a

from the cro%d (%ho are glimpsed eeril still in their fren-, &ut %ithout the fullness of

their soundtrac!), .oan poses %ith her limp &od, li!e the Piet, or ames $te%art and

7im /ova! in Vertio (?@HA) lose#up on .oan, %ho loo!s &lan!l, then smiles

%ic!edl and thro%s his head &ac! to laugh nd of sequence

Is all this a matter of men and %omen, fixed gender roles, in Grandrieux's cinema8 /ot

quite or, in the generalised and sstematic confusion of forms, identities and elements

that is La Vie nouvelle, all gestures are dispersed, shared 9oscoe, too, raises his arms todance li!e .oan= &ut he is alone, the master of nothing, and his little pirouettes


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anticipate :;lania's frantic, imprisoned spinning 9oscoe and $emour %ill also &e seen

in Piet#li!e arrangements $emour %ill &e em&raced, sculpted, led & .oan's hands,

4ust as :;lania has &een 5nd the rancis .acon#stle concentration on :;lania's

upturned nec! during her dancing lift#off and set#do%n lin!s her to $emour in the final

moments of the film as to the anonmous $ara4evan at in its prologue La Vie nouvelle,

this "immense clip" of a film (as 9amond .ellour has called it), &ound together &

rhthms, pulsations, and screams of horror

dance girl dance

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