Celebrating Leos Carax, the Midnight Sun Film Festival is screening the French master director’s latest experimental and self-reflective short film It’s Not Me fresh from the Cannes Riviera. Responding to a question concerning an unrealised museum exhibition – “Where are you now, Leos Carax?” – the voiceover opens up a meditation on life and cinema, in an unrestrained combination of film clips, negative images, colours, textual interludes, and music. The film features performances by some of the director’s go-to actors, such as the phenomenal Denis Lavant, Ekaterina Yuspina, who made a striking impression in the 2020 DAU film project, and the director’s actress daughter Nastya Golubeva Carax.
The narrative is punctuated by excerpts from the director’s 40-year filmography, which encompasses crime films, tragic love stories, spectacles, and autofiction. A descendant of the French New Wave and representative of the Cinéma du look mentality, which prioritises style over story, Leon Carax’s sources of inspiration are clear. The music, juxtaposed with the imagery, makes a statement on political developments in the Western world, from the Nazis to the rise of the far-right. Despite the film’s tragic undercurrent, a belief in the forgiving power of cinema also uncovers the director’s humorist side. Comparing the action of images flickering 24 times per second to dreamlike memory, Carax does not want us to forget the power of cinema.
It’s Not Me will be screened on June 13th before Boy Meets Girl by Leos Carax.
Tuomo Marttila