During the Gulf War, Serge Daney wrote that conversation – what he called “a typically Franco-Arab art” – could no longer take place between him and his Arab friends. Saddened by this realization, an opportunity was created to offer him a space, both real and cinematic, in which this interrupted dialogue might be rekindled. The choice of his interlocutor was immediately obvious: Elias Sanbar, a Palestinian, historian, editor of the journal Études palestiniennes, and collector of images – an exile who archives the memory of his people: press photographs, family albums, postcards, and more. For Sanbar, the image serves as proof of his identity. Daney spent most of his life watching films, yet always refused to keep still images. On both sides, there was a strong desire to confront these two attitudes toward the image and to make of them, in a way, a parable of North-South relations.
EN
“I increasingly feel that barbarism now holds a universal potential, and I am convinced that resistance must be nothing less than universal.” - Serge Daney
“I’m all for the complete rehabilitation of bar-room conversation. The world is messed up enough that we should once again have the right to speculate wildly, to remake the world, and so on. As for ‘pragmatism’ and the so-called ‘positive’ positivity – we see the results of those every day.” – Serge Daney
FR
« Je suis pour la réhabilitation totale de la conversation de bistrot. Le monde est suffisamment déglingué pour que, de nouveau, on ait le droit de tout hasarder, de refaire le monde, etc. Le « pragmatisme » et le positif « positif », on en voit tous les jours les résultats. » Une fois encore, le documentaire tente d’organiser une conversation entre deux rives éloignées. Après Godard-Duras, le critique Daney dialogue avec l’historien Sanbar. Si l’histoire reste le cadre de pensée commun et indépassable, ce qui frappe, c’est la manière dont s’opposent deux visions, deux recours à l’image. Extrêmement mélancolique, liée à l’exil chez Sanbar (la fuite de Palestine, le visage de la mère) ; apparemment plus à distance, sans affects personnels chez Daney (qui redit son amour de la carte postale et de sa « sobriété documentaire »). C’est que le cinéma n’est pas pour lui ce qu’est la Palestine pour Sanbar : un pays perdu, pour lequel on éprouverait une indicible nostalgie. C’est un pays supplémentaire, un paysage mental – un territoire inexpugnable. »
Arnaud Lambert1
- 1Arnaud Lambert, Conversation Nord-Sud : Daney/Sanbar, Tënk.
