Cinéfondation team 2014

Une Vie Radieuse

UNE VIE RADIEUSE / A RADIANT LIFE

Fiction experimental 

France 2013, 17'33 

1:66 - Color - NB

FR / ENG SUB 

 

1952, la Cité Radieuse de Marseille reçoit ses premiers occupants, 80 fonctionnaires et des dédommagés de guerre venant des quatre coins de la France. Certains sont portés par l’idéal que promet Le Corbusier. A son arrivée, un couple expérimente les lieux, l’équipement, l’espace qui lui est imparti. L’un comme l’autre réagit à son nouvel habitat, Sa singularité, ses précisions. Le corps interroge l’utopie. nouvel Eden mis au monde en pleine reconstruction, La Cité Radieuse, version courte de la Ville Radieuse, flotte sur l’après-guerre comme si rien ne s’était passé. A son bord, s’installent le froid, la solitude et la stérilité.

1952, The Radiant City of Marseille receives its first occupants, eighty civil servants and compensated from war, coming from the four corners of France. Some are led by the promise of Le Corbusier’s ideals. Upon arrival, a couple experiments the location, facilities, and space allotted to them. They each respond to the new habitat. Its uniqueness, its details. The body questions the utopia. New Eden born under the reconstruction, The radiant city floats on the after-war As nothing happened. On board, settled cold, loneliness and sterility.

 

(c) Meryll Hardt - Le Fresnoy Studio National des arts contemporains

FULL CAST AND CREW
   
With Meryll Hardt - Patrick Blauwart- Dr. Brabant. The voices of Daniel Dobbels, Jordan Gauthier, Christophe Vanheule, Sofiane Belaibi, Chantal Salmon, Lyne K, Léonore Mercier, Meryll Hardt. 
Director of Photography : Delphine Ménoret, Julien Guillery
Camera Assistant : Julien Hogert
Props : Maxime Mercadier
Make up / Hairstylists  : Lisa Keuchguerian, Clothilde Legrand, Valérie Bisbrouck.
Costume Design : Sylvie Dermigny

Editing: Meryll Hardt
Compositing / Calibrating : Raphaël Thibault
Audio Ingineer : Jérôme Noirot, Felix Kubin
Audio Assistants :  Antoine Sugita, Mathieu Lambin
Audio Editor / Mixer : Remi Mencucci
Original soundtrack : Meryll Hardt, Julie Normal, Accident du travail

Contact / diffusion :

Natalia Trebik

ntrebik@lefresnoy.net
http://www.facebook.com/unevieradieuse

  "An unsettling retro science-fiction film, A RADIANT LIFE explores the grim side of Le Corbusier’s utopic visions of the ideal city. In a masterful blend of archive materials, choreography and fiction, MERYLL HARDT examines the alienation raising when the need for geometrical harmony of space overshadows the need for human warmth. The coldness of the concrete sneaks into the character’s lives, while the sterility of the house becomes a sterility of human relationships. The radiant city proves unable to support life. The living space turns from home into a concrete cage. 

Centering the story around a 1950s housewife, the film poignantly underlines the sense of constraint and rigidity. Bit by bit, the characters are infected by the environment’s sterility. Individuality is lost, as movements and gestures lose their freedom and expressivity and become a rehearsed choreography. In a geometrical décor, the mise-en-scène fragments the protagonist’s body, revealing the completely alienating and dehumanizing aspects of life in what is more a cage than a home.” 

Diana Mereoiu, BIEFF 2013

INTERVIEW WITH FORMAT COURT 

Baby pop - Picture of an exhibition N°5

(c)  Meryll Hardt - AGz - Daniel Brognon Géronnez. 

Vidéo installation - two vidéos 16/9, 3 min 52

1 book and 1 dress (copy of Yves St Laurent by Danielle Brognon)

Soundtrack : cover of Baby Pop:  France Gall / Serge Gainsbourg

After a proposition of Alain Géronnez for Hors-Série Library / Record Shop.
Proposition : create a visual performative / installation / video piece after a music release.
Here, a short trip in between Baby Pop lyrics of Gainsbourg, performance of France Gall, Mondrian, Yves St Laurent and of course Mini Europa, on the point to close its doors and beeing delocated. 

On the other hand / Vennestraat Project / Manifesta 9 Parallel Event

On the other hand
Two digital videos, colour, sound 8' PAL 16/9

(c) Meryll Hardt. OTOH Genoa / Genk 2012.

"On the other hand" finds its roots in a story that had been reported to me. The story of an Italian young woman who arrived in Genk (Limbourg - Belgium)  with her family in the mid-sixties while the first mine crises and the strikes were on the point to happen. A young woman who was spending a lot of time imagining that her sister - who stayed in Italy - was just behind the hedge of her garden. 

The project pictures two characters, one based in Genk and the other one based in the North part of Italy.
The first character is the young immigrant, living and working in Genk as a cleaning lady at C-mine, but also an operator of a shut cinema where some posters have turned yellow.
Actions take place in 2012 but it is not fully revealed, she rather appears like a pre-1968 character.
Such as the young woman of the original story, she is in connection with some disseminate marks of her native country.
She is juxtaposed to a double, her twin sister stayed in Liguria. 

Her routine face the melancholic tour trip of her sister.
This second character, the italian sister, is at the edge of the frame.

Between the camera eye and the focus, she is watching Italia, re-enacting memories, typical scenes and clichés (hitting the aesthetic a postal card off). A tour that takes the bedroom - and the view that a bed along an open window can offer - as its starting and ending point.


Co-curatoria Michela Saccheta & Fransceca Berardi
Vennestraat Hidden Places and Identities
Genk Manifesta 9 - Parallel event.

(!) the videos below are supposed to be played together side by side with head phones or another way to switch from soundtrack to another.

Ligne Obscure at Ars Justitia

Performance at the opening of the new courthouse of Liège

Salle du tribunal de commerce.

18h40

Curated by Eric Therer.

Le voyage loin

Le Voyage Loin

first act in radio                                       at Radio Campus (Bruxelles) 

– Anvers exotique (soundscape)
– A life on the Ocean Waves
– Etoile Morte
– I can die Happy
– Lichtspiel
– La dérive d’Ophelia
– Genetic Catwalk

I can die happy

Can I die happy?

"I can die happy" is the result of a single improvisation on an instrumental version of "Love walked in" by George Gershiwn. 
Ignoring the song that Ira Gershwin later added to the composition for the"Goldwyn follies" (1937) , I took the freedom to create a new song on Georges Gerswhin's original composition, re-interpretated by Joe Loss and his orchestra in 1954.

Playing this instrumental from a found record collected in Bruxelles's streets has been the occasion to rethink the piece before its use by golden age  entertainement. It has been an elegant way to project myself in the historical context of its re-interpretation, 1954, in between Alain Turing suicide and atomic paranoia.

In last september, Gagarin Records gave this track the opportunity of a new embodiement via an Apolkalypso 7 inch.

 

 

One side: I can die happy (3:02)
Other side: Lichtspiel (3:50)

NOW AVALAIBLE ON GAGARIN RECORDS