During September, ProaCine presents Three interpretation exercises, by romanian director Cristi Puiu. Based on Three dialogues and The story of the Antichrist, books written in the late nineteenth century by the russian philosopher and theologian Vladimir Soloviev; and freely inspired in the series of films Six Moral Tales, by french director Eric Rohmer; Puiu’s film an amazing and hypnotic acting exercise and a deep reflection on the nature of morality and religious faith.

Author of The Death of Doctor Lazarescu, Cristi Puiu was invited to conduct an intensive acting workshop three weeks in France, for which decided to work on the texts of Soloviev as a way to access the aesthetics of Rohmer, “The Soloviev`s book was published in 1900, and asked them to turn him into a 2011 text. They could improvise as they wanted, but they could´t lose the sense of the text. When I watch movies, sometimes I have problems, because I feel that the actors are pretending. For more correctly say his texts warn that their minds are elsewhere, only through the observation of their corporeality. I do not care about the specific words that the actors, I worked with were saying, as long as the saying them were mentally emotionally and spiritually present. “

Three interpretation exercises is part of the selection of films made ​​by the international programmer Richard Peña during ProaCine 2014.  The program of Peña seeks to study the relationship of performance as an expressive medium in contemporary cinema through a set of films centered primarily on the human figure.

FUNCTIONS
SUNDAY 7, 14 and 21 SEPTEMBER – AT 18 pm.

ADMISSIONS
auditorio@proa.org

Press Kit

FICHA TÉCNICA
Three Interpretation Exercises / Tres ejercicios de interpretación
Director: Cristi Puiu
País: Francia, Rumania/ Año 2013
Duración: 157 min
Formato: Digital
Producción: Nathalie Rizzardo, Anca Puiu
Productora: Chantier Normandes, Mandragora production
Cámara: Luchian Ciobanu, Edición: Dragos Apertri; Sonido: Jean-Paul Bernard;
Director de obra: Stephanie Hubert
Actores: Ludovine Anberree, Marion Bottolier, Ugo Broussot, Anne-Marie Charles, Anne Courpron, Perrine Guffroy, Hillary Keegin, Nathalie Meunier, Barnabe Perrotey, Jean-Benoit Poirier, Diana Sakalauskaite, Patrick Vaillant.

SINOPSIS

Cinema and philosophy –this thesis is not mine– create concepts. A concept gives some order to experience, and filmic shots allow seeing experience in a different way. In Three Interpretations, Puiu adapts the books Three Conversations, and A Short Tale of the Antichrist, by Vladimir Soloviov, which were written in the early 20th century. Everything began with an interpretation workshop given by the Rumanian director in Chantiers Nomades, Toulouse. This extraordinary film elliptically dedicated to Eric Rohmer began there, as actors were invited to use this philosopher’s ideas and to establish a dialogue with them in various places and situations; here¸ concepts are present over the filmic staging and, actually, they are the true main characters.

Divided in three different chapters (“The Mouse Is under the Table,” “The Cat Is on the Chair,” and “The Cat Is on the Bough”), in each of them four characters argue about love, death, the presence or absence of a deterministic character over our actions, freedom, the Antichrist, political pacifism, and Weerasethakul’s Syndromes and a Century. A not often quoted Biblical passage appears in the three episodes and, beyond the exegesis proposed in each occasion, this repetition suggests the way in which concepts live in people and have an influence over their points of view.

http://www.ficunam.unam.mx/en/index.php/programacion/pelicula-2014/trois-exercices-dinterpretation

Three films based on Three Conversations by Russian writer and philosopher Vladimir Solovyov.The actors’ ‘exercises’ develop into a minimalistic trilogy on cinema and literature, social and spiritual life, acting in film and in real life.

This trilogy (consisting of the films The Cat is On the Chair, The Mouse is Under the Table and The Monkey is On the Branch) is the result of a workshop at the French artists’ studio Chantiers Nomades. Puiu was inspired by Three Conversations, the masterpiece by 19th-century Russian philosopher Vladimir Solovyov. The treatise, subtitled ‘About War, Morality and Religion’, is embedded in refined character studies. In his subdued cinematography, Puiu always puts the acting first.
In The Cat… Anne-Marie and her daughter Ludivine receive their old friends Diana and Bernabé for lunch. In The Mouse… the academic Ugo takes his childhood friend Jean-Benoit, a soldier, out to lunch with Patrick and his wife Marion. In The Monkey… we see the girlfriends Hillary, Perrine, Anne and Nathalie talk as they have lunch. All discuss life, friendship, war and faith. In the evening, all the groups meet in a light-footed scene in which they hold a séance.

http://www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com/en/films/trois-exercises-d-interpretation/