Le récit d'A
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Le Récit d'A consists of a series of tales which take place within the same video : parallel universes which reflect each other without ever meeting. The tale of Andrew, a travelogue and the thoughts of Edmond Jabes are all elements in the free play of the composition. "I use autobiographical traces (made with scans and in Super 8) to speak of vaster spaces : the existential desert of Jabes; the desert of the 1990s; our youth devastated by AIDS; my life deprived of its youth. The video also speaks of a way of seeing, of a change in consciousness, and of what can open up, even in the face of such a seemingly disastrous result".

Esther Valiquette

Awards and mentions
Prix du public
Silence elles tournent
Montréal
1991
1990
Canada
19:30
Original language
English
French
Subtitles
English
French

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Credits

Direction
Esther Valiquette
Conception
Esther Valiquette
Participants
Andrew Small
Editing
René Roberge
Sound Design
Paula Fairfield
Co-production
Esther Valiquette
Vidéographe

Technical information

Color
Black and white
Color
Sound
Stereo

Documentation

Further information

Commentary by Nicole Gingras, Curator

A diary, a travelogue, confidences : this video sketches the portrait of a discreet relationship between a man and a woman. There is the terse narrative of an HIV-positive man, a landscape slowly engulfed by the shadow of fatal sickness and the fragile fates of two beings. At the very end, we understand, despite the videomaker’s consummate discretion, that Andrew’s story is also Esther Valiquette’s. Punctuated by quotations from Susan Sontag and Edmond Jabès, this video is also a poetic rumination on the desert.

Images
Keywords
Essay, Narrative, AIDS, Desert, Poetry

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