A recollection of almost 40 years of career. A giant image-jukebox, from early 70s autoportrait to films for Alain Bashung / Elli Medeiros, private karaokes to “video sculptures” applied to John Travolta or Maria Callas, and much much more…
The continuing demand for high standards is what sets Rouseau's work apart. What makes this film distinctive is the way Rousseau explicitly returns to the source of his creative inspiration. So here he is at home reciting «Bérénice» to himself, whilst going about his household chores. It verges on the comical: There are repeated shots of him obstinately trying to turn off a dripping tap, or the jubilant close up of bare feet carried away in performing a dance step or two. Combining art with life in such a way, that nothing is compartmentalised, nothing lost - that is the goal.
This film proposes the allegory of a social drift with all the power of romantic fascination that it can evoke. It is about a meeting oftwo young people formatted by a culture of success with two men embodying a nihilistic and dematerialized vision of society. This work treads the fine line that separates the hero from the loser.. Are these two men messiahs or a pair of wandering vagrants? Is this descent on the river closer to a descent into the fires of hell or rather an initiatory journey?
A group of children mysteriously falls asleep during a class field trip in the Japanese countryside. The teacher who accompanied them will later be interrogated by the American secret services concerning their disappearance. Inspired by part of Haruki Murakami's novel Kafka on the Shore, it shares the same desire to combine a quasi-documentary aesthetic with supernatural themes.
