Arrêté

Of surveying the world and cinema’s joyful daring.
What can be heard, never stopping, seems to be from some cuttings or other, in the background the bells of a herd of goats, and in the foreground geese (and church bells, a few people: richness), and once, possibly a shepherd, someone who loudly calls “arrêtez!” – “Stop!” rather than “firm” (permanence, stability), the title Arrêté.
What can be seen is the interior of a house, and the sound suggests in the same way as what can be seen of its surroundings through the doors and windows and cracks – both architecture and light – that it is somewhere in the country. One of these openings to the exterior occupies the precise center of each image. After a fade-in, at the beginning of every scene, we can see the space around or leading to the opening at the maximum aperture until the space is almost submerged in light; the lens aperture then closes smoothly to the minimum stop and darkness discreetly envelopes the visible elements; this is followed by a fade-out. This happens despite all the openings in the house (which always seems too orderly in some way). All cloudless summer days are present here, as a balsam. (With a fly...) – just like the substance of film, in its inner disquiet, in its schism: the cinematographic image and the “precinematographic” frame, the switch between different perceptions in the other or around the others, in the movement of
the light. (Olaf Möller)