Synopsis
Rodrigue Jean gives voice to people who have nearly drowned. The story of their disaster and the lessons they have drawn from it make us think that life is born of water and flows somewhat like a river. We are born in a state something like a spring. This spring becomes a stream, we travel through forests, winding our way around obstacles to finally arrive at the river where our water merges with other water, like a new and clear consciousness. There is a proverb which states that great rivers are made up of small streams. In this way we all contribute to something that is greater than us and which carries us along to something even greater still.
A word from Tënk
La voix des rivières is a talking-heads film that succeeds in transcending the format, thanks to filmmaker Rodrigue Jean’s precise and deliberate cinematic choices, making it far more than a parade of close-up shots of people recounting stories of drowning. This choice of frame centres the voices of these individuals as they themselves remember the echoes of voices lost under the waters—the film’s title evoking these two voices, those of the living and the dead. It also allows Jean to capture the emotions transiting the faces of his subjects as they share their memories of loved ones lost to the river, or their own experiences of near-death by drowning—the tics in their expressions, tremors under their skin or wrinkles of frowns, hesitations as their mouths shape their words… each of these sensations evoking a feeling still all too vivid to name. Jean willingly lets these two elements—voices and faces—carry the film, to extraordinarily stripped-down effect. Apart from a few images and murmurs of running water alongside a discreet and melancholic soundtrack, our attention is focused on listening and observing. The result is a work as solemn as it is serene.
Claire Valade
Critic and programmer
