Elisabeth, a young historian, travels to Lyon, where the socialist and feminist Flora Tristan was active in the 19th century. Following in her footsteps, Elisabeth wanders through the old town. Using a small cassette recorder, she tries to reconstruct the sounds Flora must have observed, revealing the layers of history in sounds and noises, in faces and facades. A history professor tries to lead her back to the paths of academic study, but she remains determined to break free from all academic rigidity and, searching for time past, discovers her own contemporary reality and that of the city of Lyon.
EN
“With a remarkable lightness of touch, Blind Spot sketches a challenge facing feminist historiography, emphasizing the necessity of bringing greater attention to the work of women while also pointing to the limits of any approach content to fill in gaps while leaving how history is written unchanged. Von Alemann suggests that the way forward might reside in the adoption of unconventional, self-reflexive modes of confronting the past and claims filmmaking as a site where this can occur. She sees absence not simply as a problem to be solved, but an opportunity to think otherwise, to play by different rules. This underseen film urges experimentation with altered frameworks of intelligibility, recognizing something that must be remembered today: simply populating old structures with new heroines will only reinscribe the marginalization that must be overcome. Its provocations remain acutely relevant amidst a vogue for literary nonfiction, much of it written by women, that blends scholarly research with first-person expression and a keen interest in ‘rediscovering’ women’s contributions to film history. Would Blind Spot be better known today if von Alemann had made fewer short films, fewer documentaries, less political work, and more feature-length art-house fictions – that is, if her oeuvre were more legible within the hierarchies of prestige and value that dominate film criticism? I imagine so. The work ahead – and already underway – involves not just remembering ‘forgotten’ women but dismantling the mechanisms that led to their oblivion.”
Erika Balsom1
- 1Erika Balsom, Remembering Women: Claudia von Alemann’s Blind Spot,” Cinema Scope 87, 15 June 2021.
