Using a fixity and a shot length just insistent enough for the gaze to settle comfortably within the landscape, filmmaker and artist Aliha Thalien opens Nos îles from the shores and edges of Martinique, her homeland. The framing, firmly placed on natural movements captured in wide shots that gradually tighten, immediately introduces a play of awareness—a palpable feeling of being caught, as a viewer, between distance and immersion. Also appearing is a solitary rock in the sea, into which we project ourselves, as if into the face of a friend. The dialogue between the elements—mountain, palm trees, sky, dense ambient sounds—unfolds gently, slowly, with depth. Where do we find ourselves in front of such beautiful shots of this land? The question crosses my mind.

Then, through a motorcycle that takes us into the interior of the land, we become are suddenly very close to young people who, like a broad pictorial group spread out on the grass, chat, practicing an entirely sunlit friendship in the afternoon. What are they talking about? Fathers who disappear while buying milk, a fear of water, a preference for focusing on oneself—natural words circulating, just as our gaze earlier moved from one element to another, between individuals. The play of awareness has shifted, and now we find ourselves questioning our proximity to these friends, who clearly feel a deep connection. In this movement, the camera also moves closer to their faces, which we now admire just as we did the beautiful sea rock earlier. And so, very close to these people, whose inner vitality is also photogenically revealed to us, we find ourselves in the midst of a trust, respectfully ajar, listening as the group discusses independence, details the living conditions imposed by the "békés" — white Creoles descended from French immigration — and collectively reflects on a colonial situation, while, in contrast, a French flag flutters in the background.

After this fleeting, intimate incursion that becomes political, we return to still shots at night, leaving the interior land behind—has a day passed?—and then go with the same group of friends to gather some rumors about the enigmatic rock from the beginning. We will leave it, with and among these young people, continuing to open our inner horizons.

Maude Trottier
Editor-in-Chief, Hors champ magazine