Straight for the Heart
Lea PoolThe characters: Pierre (a photo journalist), David (working in an acquarian), Sarah (a celloist), Quentin (a window cleaner)
The title: corps perdu -- 'with lost body'; impetuously; in desperation.
I. The menage-a-trois: Pierre--David -- Sarah: Why do Sarah and David leave Pierre? How does Pierre respond to it?
- Reasons for the breakup
- Sarah and David: cannot say goodbye;
- Sarah: does it for her life.
- David: without planning, it just happens under Pierre's eyes. Trio turns to duet.
- the mode of their relationship: Pierre in the center, or put them in the center. Pierre being the controlling one. (clips 1, 2, )
- "Deep down what you escape is the pain of being alone."
- Pierre's responses:
- cannot take it; obsessed,
- search for reasons; re-experience the pain of being rejected. (clips: 4/5; 20/21)
- fixation -> sublimation: start to take photos of them as well as the city.
II. Pierre as a photo journalist: What is his style of photography? In Nicaragua and then back in Montreal?
- Pierre's style: objective/detached or subjective/involved? From the most objective/detached to the most subjective/involved.
- Nicaragua --surprised to find himself called "assissino" (assasin?)
- Back home: He associates his own personal experience in Nicaragua, back home with the city images.
- "The Corroding City": fragmentary images of emptiness, decay, superficiality, (clips: 7; 13; )
- images of Sarah and David: possessing them, seeing them leave, visualizing their responses
- image of a fragmented and complaining self (clip 14)
- recurrent images: reveal his fears and desires (clips: 8; 12; 17; 25)
- the meaning of photography:
- the banquet guests -- photography: "giving structure to life"; "collecting life is easier than understanding it"
- Pierre: "unable to care for people, we care for things."
III. From obsession to liberation: How does Pierre liberate himself?
- After knowing Quentin
- not throught Quentin: still cannot forgets about Sarah and David; Quentin as their messenger (Clip 18)
- not through his love for the mother.
- gets pleasures in viewing the city from above, or looking at the airplane (clips 19, 23, 24)
- healing process is not straightforward: from liberation to obsession, and then to further liberation
- his photo work: clip 24
- the final moment of connection and liberation clips possessing them; visualizing their responses (27, 28)
- Is he liberated from his obsession with Sarah and David, or from his egotism?
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