Un Chant d'Amour

Jean Genet - 1950
Genet's only film, a bit under half an hour. We have a real focus on the body obviously, with many many close views, a great physicality. The taking of individual body parts in quite abstracted backdrops made me think of Cocteau, who is after all the obvious reference point. The skin, the licks, the saliva, even the smoke, is given great plasticity. This is perhaps due to the light spots on the bodies being just a touch overexposed, with satisfyingly grainy rest of the prison cells.
The real achievement I got from this film was the sense of their not being any reality / fantasy distinction; each of the different kinds of images functioned on an equal plain, to make an expression of at once a story and a feeling. Moves from one to another could be cued, but there is really no differnce. When a guard is with a prisoner, looking at him, why should the next shot not be of a flower failing to be grasped, or of some naked bodies? We know what Genet is saying, or rather expressing, even if it does not follow a strict deductive logic. This lack of embarrasement about showing the different images together was, for me, very impressive.