Still Life

This film screens as part of Pix Rendez-Vous. The section is a collaboration between Oslo Pix and Institut Français, and includes nine French titles at this year’s programme. It is a continuation of the festival Rendez-Vous with French film, which for many years has presented the remarkable quality of contemporary French cinema to a Norwegian audience.

Named the best debut French feature of 2016 by the Prix Louis Delluc committee, Still Life (Gorge cœur ventre) is an original, visionary examination of the complex bond between man and beast. Confidently blending fiction and documentary techniques, it takes place mainly in a single, real-life abattoir--rendered in immersive, almost dream-like ways by cinematographer Jonathan Ricquebourg and a sound-design team headed by Philippe Deschamps.

The film, whose French title translates as "throat, heart, stomach," focuses intently on those who work in the slaughterhouse--particularly a young, punkish dude (non-pro newcomer Virgile Hanrot) and on the animals who meet there grisly end therein. Director/co-writer Maud Alpi includes a wild-card element in the form of the laconic protagonist's four-legged chum Boston, a labrador-cross who observes the fate of his fellow quadrupeds with fascinated bemusement and who takes centre stage during the enigmatic finale.

A festival favourite since premiering at Locarno last summer, Still Life "places humans and animals on a practically equal level: naked, driven by instinct and behaving in very similar ways," as Spanish critic David Gonzalez wrote for Cineuropa. While clearly inspired by George Franju's 1949 classic slaughterhouse documentary, Le Sang des bêtes, Alpi speaks clearly with her own, distinctive cinematic voice. NY

Maud Alpi (b. France, 1980) started her film career as a teenager, making short videos solo and with friends. She then studied philosophy at the École normale supérieure in Paris, and directed several short films including Le Fils de la Sorcière (2003). She has been working with writing-partner Baptiste Boulba-Ghigna since 2010.