Synopsis
The “urchins” in question are slag heaps, the vast mounds formed by the waste from former mines. The “cabal” is launched by Moullet himself, considering the contempt in which these mountains of waste removed from the subsoil by generations of miners are held. He undertakes their ascent, review and praise, leading us - with rigour and humour - to love them.
A word from Tënk
The documentary is Moullet's way of radically and obsessively questioning our most ordinary actions: loving (Anatomy of a Relationship), eating (Origins of a Meal), walking (La cabale des oursins), swimming (My First Breaststroke), taking the metro (Barres), visiting (Foix). He makes us laugh by putting himself in all these states (lover, eater, walker, swimmer, traveller, tourist), lending his voice, himself, to lay bare the obvious, explore the familiar, and survey forgotten territory. In La cabale des oursins, Moullet knows how to be both the most down-to-earth and the mightiest, literally, as he climbs to the top of the slag heaps to denounce the indifference that surrounds them.
Jacques Deschamps
Filmmaker
