Staff Pick Premiere: "Genius Loci" by Adrien Merigeau |
It's a great week to watch Staff Pick Premiere comes from Adrien Merigeau in the Oscar-nominated "Genius Loci" - a psychedelic, magical journey of an untold woman who discovers a constantly changing cityscape.
A style that is unmatched and a range of 20th-century paintings that are contemporary, Merigeau wows with every frame and detail. The world is constantly re-imagined and contextualized with fresh angles. Color is interpreted in an edgy way as it plays alongside white space. The water in a cup transforms into a river, or a unruly carpet can double into a trampoline Merigeau will stop at nothing to realize a fever dream.
Merigeau explains the genesis for the movie as a way of processing trauma he'd experienced in his own life and witnessed by his friends. The trauma seemed like "a perpetual flow state." When he sat in a squat with artist friends in Paris throughout 2015, Merigeau recalls, "What impressed me the most was how much the city can feel like nature as you see it in the night in abandoned places. The transcendence of nature/culture, order/chaos that was the inspiration for Genius Loci linked up with my other passions, like fairytales, experimental animation, and contemporary music."
The runtime is around 16 minutes, and informed by his extensive experiences and others, Merigeau elevates the short-form animation with this distinct expression of abstract.
We met with director Adrien Merigeau for a chat about difficulties, timelines, and balancing visually expressiveness with narrativeand offer advice for new filmmakers.
The inspiration for this:
"My initial idea for 'Genius Loci' was inspired by my family of friends, when I resided in Kilkenny, Ireland between 2011 between 2011 and 2014. The group was comprised of gorgeous people, poets and musicians who lived in an old water mill in the middle of the city. The way they lived the moment was very inspiring for me.
The experiences we experienced as well as the experiences we shared, it felt like experiencing a type of constant stream of consciousness. Also, it felt like it was an attempt to heal from personal trauma for certain of us. I had a desire to express a character like this in some way. Specifically, a person and their spirit, as an analogy for poetry and the inspiration that my friends were radiating then ."
On challenges:
"My main challenge was to let the film wander away from its story structure by employing a delicate poetic language. After a very narrative first draft I was of the opinion that it lacked sensitivity and openness the writing process as I started drawing. It took around three years of adding and removing concepts until the movie was fluid and tight from beginning to end. Similar to writing music in some way,
I didn't want to explain anything explicitly, but rather that the viewer be drawn into -- and swept up by the characters on screen through the entire film, much like a raft drifting in a river. It took quite a bit of trials and errors for the flow to begin working as I discovered the things the film was supposed to focus on, in order for it to feel snug and not overly broad or dispersed.
The volume of back and forth needed in the writing process made it hard to plan production. I also never was quite sure if I could hire the animation crew. That could get very stressful for me and Genius the producer of Loci Amaury Ovise from time to time. In the year 2018, Amaury made the decision to partner up with Folimage, a production company situated in Valence in France.
At the time, I was working in my own art studio located in Paris. When I joined Folimage and a brand newly formed animation team I had to fix the animatic before launching production, which was great and arrived at the perfect time. Therefore, I'd say that balancing between needing time to adjust the poetic flow of the film and the reality of the timeline for production was the most difficult problem for this movie ."
On the timeline:
"It took me about five years to make 'Genius Loci.' The first couple of years involved writing and financing an idea that was originally intended as a narrative, but was not what ended up becoming. Then I needed several years for rewriting it as well as about 18 months to complete production. The deadline kept getting pushed back. The final day, 5 years is not unusual for the creation of a short animated film however, I'll attempt to be better prepared before starting preproduction next time !"
The balance of both narrative and visual
"It was extremely difficult to understand, let alone communicate what these ideas were in the first place. In the present, I still find it difficult to articulate. The film focuses on the birth of a person's inner spirituality as she experiences the chaos that is a Parisian suburban area at night and the traumas she is trying to escape from. Also, I wanted to concentrate on the smallest details, observations, moments, and lastly, for the character to take an absence and feel beauty in broken areas. The concepts and goals for the films were dear to me but their actual presentation required a great deal to dig through and the majority of what happens in the movie is the result of an accident of some kind.
The visuals of the film tell the story in a way that is unique. In the end, I collaborated with amazing artists to cut down the film's scenes, and to make the film stand out particularly Brecht Evens Celine Devaux as well as Alan Holly who were a huge help from the start ."
A word of advice for aspiring film makers:
"As a teenager I was a teenager and my first artistic pursuits were often connected to stories and folklore. What I aspire to now is to represent more personal as well as real-life situations that I experience as well as observe in my everyday routine. It forces me to place myself in circumstances that are interesting to me, friends that inspire me, as well as social dynamics that are important to me.
I enjoy taking notes on discussions, writing about extraordinary places that are present in everyday world, and keeping a record of moments that were profound, emotional, or just get me into that flow state. The details can be minor, or unimportant -it could be a reflection of the light of a passing glance at a floating scene, or trash on the sidewalk. I love paying attention to detail that gives the feeling of living in the present time. Let the story unfold with the help of observations and specifics."